(Quick Title-Segue/Media Moment? Watch this and tell me this isn’t Tardar Sauce aka Grumpy-Cat previously incarnated as Santa in one of his other 8 lives. Still, just because Tardar/Santa are Grumpy, doesn’t make them wrong… Everyday Can’t Be Christmas)

Last weekend my family and I celebrated “Fake Christmas”. Confections were made and packaged, the bunkerpartment was decorated, gifts were exchanged, feasts were consumed, and a fabulous time was had by all. But before I get in to all that faux-snowtastic fabulousity, I’ll back up and explain why I was rolling caramels in my Kermit Santa tee on January 11th. I mean, I’m late even by Russian Orthodox standards. Even by my standards.

See, due to CF-related ridiculousness, I was in the hospital 3 hours from home over actual Christmas, and since I had already committed to really go all out and get stupid festive and sneeze glitter this year, it became a thing that I still DO Christmas. I mean, really – I’m twenty-six years old. Santa is no longer a factor here. With the exception of a lifelong, crack-of-dawn, whirlwind, home-and-napping-by-lunchtime, breakfast-and-shopping Christmas Eve tradition with my dad (initiated, ironically, to get me up and out of the house to give Santa a few precious hours to finish her dirty work so she didn’t have to stay up until 4am cursing teeny pieces of plastic and SWAT-grade twist ties) – there are literally NO traditions or celebratory shenanigans that are specifically tied to *December Twenty-Fifth*.

So once it became pretty clear that no, I won’t be home for Christmas (maniacal laugh) since when could you count on me?, the parents and I decided to “postpone Christmas” until I was out of the hospital, out of the woods, and had time to actually finish decorating and shopping and doing all the Christmas things that I had sworn, come hell or high water (or ya know, uncooperative pulmonary status), I *would* be doing this year.

We still did a few little things to make it festive and fun, as much for the poor/awesome nurses and doctors working on Christmas/Eve (and for whom this was just another work day, and therefore not a reason for their families to essentially reschedule Christmas around their-and-only-their schedule). Madge brought me one of the little tabletop trees, some ornaments, and battery-operated lights, and I had a little decorating partay with Faja the night before Madge came back from her Jessie-sitting break. She also got me this creepy little guy from the gift shop; after spending a little too much time on Pinterest, I wanted to do my own little version of “Elf on the Shelf”, only moving him around my room and making him do shady medical-related things.

Elfin Sizzurp, that shiz will mess you UP, mayynnee…

Unfortunately, most of my best ideas were shot down (probably for the best, seeing as how I’m a repeat customer with a reputation to maintain) but I was still left alone with him (and by alone, I mean “alone with Faja”) long enough to sling him drunkenly over the back of the adorable plush snowman gifted to me by the hospital volunteer crew (and promptly accessorized with a baby carrots tucked into a paper dosing cup  relabeled ”Colt 45″), order a small container of  ”Breakfast Syrup” (one of the four Elfin food groups, as you know) and tuck it under his arm like any other properly drunken individual choosing to consume their chosen elixir straight from a large gallon jug.

On Actual (But Not Really) Christmas Eve, Madge drove up, brought Chinese Takeout (a currently-retired-but-previously-longstanding Christmas Eve tradition), hung out for a little while, then went and crashed at a hotel since Faja was already set up and camped out for his custodial shift. She also brought me the supplies to assemble my little thank-you/holiday token gifts for the staff, which did me a ton of good to be able to work on overnight, and really put me in a great frame of mind and space of gratitude for Actual (But Not Really) Christmas the next day.

Then on Actual (But Not Really) Christmas, Madge came back, we all hung out a little while acting stupid, started to try to watch Elf a few times before giving up due to the revolving-door-of-why-you’re-here that is the hospital (and that thankfully doesn’t stop just because it’s Christmas). We all wore our red and green (them in real, live, grown up clothes, with like, buttons ‘n zippers ‘n stuff; me in glorified not-pajamas), and wished various nurses and staff Merry Christmas; we didn’t go all KindyGarten Brat Fest and PRETEND IT ISN’T EVEN CHRISTMAS AT ALL! …

We just gave in to the fact that Actual Christmas/Eve would be spent in an unusual and slightly glum place and situation, and chose to take the pressure off ourselves to pretend otherwise and awkwardly overcompensate –  A practice that, although the reasons for which I understand, I personally find exponentially more depressing than just shrugging and saying,

“Hey, Self. So. Christmas in the hospital. Bummer. Here are about 34 ways in which it could still be much worse, even within the comparatively narrow scope of ‘Hospital Christmases’, you know, just off the top of your head, and here are about 17 people on your various social media feeds who actually, in real time, are having a much crappier, scarier, lonelier, sadder, worse holiday than you. You’ve got Faja to your left. Madge across the room. Cooper safe and happy. You’re conscious to observe these things; and of sound enough mind to comprehend them.  You’re able to speak on your own to express gratitude for them.  It really is a Merry Christmas, indeed, Special Snowflake. Get over thyself.”

Later that afternoon, I copiously reassured the parentals that I would, in fact, welcome the forcible quiet, and would not, in fact, merely sob into my plastic-covered mattress awaiting the return of someone-anyone-who-loves-me. They finally went out in search of food, and sort of low-lit-indie-flick, adorable-yet-sad(ish) date at a Mexican dive before Madge retired to one more night of decent sleep before trading custody and cot, and Faja returned to complete his final evening of supervisory duties, and bequeath sweet baby Jesus with Frankincense and Myrrh me with chips and queso blanco.

And that, my friends, is how I came to be fraying rafia on Christmas packaging (along with my patience) in mid-January.

Christmas in the hospital? Less than ideal, sure. But when you have a family who couldn’t dare Rock Around The Christmas Tree without you, even if that means doing it closer to Inauguration Day than December 25th?

Pretty Freakin’ Merry.