Day After Christmas

It has been a tradition in our family to spend the day after Christmas with the Taylors. This was a tradition when I was younger and has carried on through the years. Mawmaw used to tell me that Christmas did not occur for her until the day after because that's when all of us were there. *Sigh, I miss that lady!*

Once Mawmaw moved to heaven, we continued the tradition and spent the 26th of December with Pawpaw at his place near Bonham. Our traditional meal was brisket and sometimes ham when Mawmaw was alive, and it later turned into BBQ from a local restaurant once Pawpaw was in charge! LOL

My grandfather's health had been a bit shakey for the past couple of years. He had been in and out of the hospital, had a pacemaker put in, lived with my parents for a greater part of last year, etc. The Sunday before Thanksgiving, it appeared that he was not going to pull through. The family was called in, and we remained at the hospital the entire day. His will to live pulled him through, though, but he wasn't quite the same. He returned to us very weak, frail. He relied on oxygen to breath and a wheelchair to get around. We did not even get to celebrate Thanksgiving with him because he was in the hospital. Around the 1st of December, he was released into a VA nursing home, no longer able to live in his home even with assisted care.

He was able to get out of the nursing home for 3 hours at a time so we kept our family tradition and celebrated Christmas at his house with him on the 26th. We had the traditional BBQ meal and banana pudding for dessert. I don't know that Pawpaw ate much food, but it didn't take long for him to devour that banana pudding. :) He even spilled a bit on his shirt in the dash from the bowl to his mouth.

Those 3 hours were up quite quickly, and it was soon time to take Pawpaw back to the nursing home. It took my dad, my brother and my uncle to load him in the car. I don't know why, but I walked out with them. I was holding Elijah, and when Nathan stuck his head out the door, I told him to come give Pawpaw another hug. I felt that it was going to be the last time we saw him. The boys waved and blew him kisses. And, he returned to the VA facility.

The pictures from this gathering are quite sacred to the family, but here are a few I got to share...

Thanks to my aunt and uncle, Elijah now has this annoying...I mean, wonderful...toy called Elmo Live!

You can see Pawpaw in the back of this picture, behind Nathan.

On our solemn car ride home...I just didn't feel like talking much...God gave us this to behold.