Good tidings to you! I am eagerly awaiting this Christmas because it is that much closer to the end of 2020. Let’s face it, this year went in the crapper fast.
January: Things started out OK for us. We spent last New Years in Tennessee. The seasonal sabbatical with my sister Dawn & her husband Darren is something I look forward to each year. It doesn’t get more Holly Jolly than Christmas with Dolly. Have you seen the Inn at Pigeon Forge??
I thought I’d give one of those annoying Christmas letters a shot this year. Wait! Don’t click off just yet. This isn’t your typical “OMG! My family just couldn’t get any more perfect, we are so blessed!” Christmas letters. This is a Russo Christmas letter. Shit’s gonna get real as I let you in on how we’ve handled Covid, quarantine, education, life, death, illness, elation, depression and 2 cats. Ho! Ho! Ho!
February: The start of the decline. Global restrictions on air travel from China are in place and the U. S. declares a public health emergency on Feb 3. My baby grandson, Jace develops RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) an extremely contagious illness that requires him to be transported to a regional medical center where he is admitted to the ICU. His parents are frantic but I am in Florida as Don’s Mom is also admitted to the ICU with a severe onset respiratory illness where she is having problems maintaining her blood oxygen levels. My father in law also gets admitted to the same hospital after Don & his brother escort him to the ER because he looks like death warmed over. (If you’re keeping count, that’s 3 immediate family members hospitalized at the same time. 2 in ICU.) All 3 go home: Baby gets discharged, Bill gets discharged, RoseMarie goes home to the Lord. Covid will prevent us from having a proper memorial ceremony. Eric turns 30. (How is that possible?)
March: Schools close, I begin work from home. For the 1st two weeks I get up, shower, get dressed and move to my hastily created office space. There are numerous technical difficulties as we try now to get the non-direct patient caregivers to an on-line workspace. On the third week I stop getting dressed and work in PJs. On the fourth week I stop showering. On the 5th week I stop combing my hair, on the 6th week I stop brushing my teeth. (You get the picture.) I last get to see and hold Jace on March 8.
April: Don & I are taking daily walks on the mountain. We meet and talk to neighbors we’ve had for 20+ years but never knew existed who are also taking daily walks on the mountain. We begin to really appreciate the fact that we are isolated, rural, & have lived like Doomsday Preppers for the past 20 years. We are non-plussed by grocery shortages because we have enough food and toilet paper to last at least 3 mos. Our Spring Break trip with Steve, Kim and the kids is cancelled. We bake and decorate egg shaped cookies for Easter instead of coloring eggs because we don’t want to have to go to the store to replenish the eggs. I try out new recipes.
May: I begin early preparations for my garden. We are nurturing a rose bush we planted in April that was given to Don by his co-workers as a remembrance for his Mom. I get bold (because I have nothing else to do) and plant with abandon. We have a snap frost on May 9 where it is 32 degrees in the morning. We spend the day before cursing and covering everything in tarps. One of our local orchards loses the majority of it’s peach and some of it’s apple blossoms. This same orchard will go on to have a major fire later in the year. They essentially don’t open for their Summer & Fall seasons. (Are you feeling Merry yet?) Damian’s 8th grade baseball season gets cancelled. Damian’s Spring String Thing camp at James Madison University gets cancelled. Damian’s 8th grade graduation is cancelled.
June: Don is turning 65! I plan a party here at Rancho Russo for just my immediate family. Don is looking forward to this as he has been slipping further and further into the morass as he tries to constantly second guess what’s coming next. His Mom’s rosebush blooms the most beautiful roses I’ve ever seen. The garden is looking great and provides me with a lot of sanity and fresh veggies. My sister sends Don meat for his birthday! (The gift that’s always the correct size.) The bad part is Steve gets sick (not Covid) and he and his family can’t come to the party. The good part is we get to see Jace, Darren, Kensley, Natalie & Eric. We decide we need to plan 1 thing to look forward to each month.
Meat! Just what I wanted. 
A Rose is a rose is a rose 
Jace & Uncle Eric
July: Missing our usual family beach vacation. We have been spending time every day in our pool. We venture to Eric’s for a movie day and get to see Hamilton & Jojo Rabbit. We have our own July 4th celebration on the mountain with an outdoor cookout over the fire pit and fireworks. (It’s not the same.) Our dog of 16 years, Sadie, leaves us and we mourn again. All the kids and grand kids come home! We have a glorious weekend going to play Frisbee Golf, swimming and hanging out at the fire pit at night.
Summer Nights 
Steve making pizzas
August: The tomatoes are prolific and we are really enjoying the bounty from the garden which has rewarded me for all the attention I have paid to it this year. We need a travel experience. Our first venture since this all began is a jaunt up the Skyline Drive to enjoy a picnic in Shenandoah National Park. I get spooked because the picnic grounds is full of Mennonites tromping in and out of the public bathrooms without masks so I have to hold my bladder until we return home. Don goes back to school! He is both joyful and ambivalent, . . at the same time, . . . all day. Darren gets sick and begins a medical odyssey that will take him to 3 hospitals, teams of doctors and no answers.
September: Damian is back to school . . . virtually. The kids and grand kids had such a good time here in July that they want to do it again. Don plans and executes an amazing ‘birthday carnival’ to celebrate all our Sept and October birthdays. The showpiece of which is a jousting arena where we get to take out all of our Covid related frustrations on each other! A lovely Zoom memorial service for Rose Marie is held on her birthday and enables folks from all over the country to participate. We have our second ‘travel’ excursion and drive down to the Northern Neck of Virginia to attend Jace’s 1st birthday party. We stay in a hotel! I forget to pack my disinfectant wipes so we have to stop and buy more so I can disinfect the already disinfected hotel room. Damian begins attending wrestling practices. Don has a cancer scare.
Let the beatings begin! 
Happy 1st Birthday Jace
October: Darren has spent a week in the hospital and has every known gastrointestinal test. He has been having abdominal pain for a month now. He has been worked up by the surgical team and the GI specialists at VCU medical center. They discover he has a congenital malformation of his intestines but this doesn’t explain the pain. He is back home, in pain and disillusioned because he thinks no one believes him. Don visits the VA hospital and is diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, not cancer. I have promised him he could have a kitten if he wasn’t dying of cancer because I am not getting saddled with a kitten if he checks out. We get a kitten. His name is Oz. I host a Halloween scavenger hunt for Damian and his girlfriend.
November: We are attempting to integrate the new cat into the family while keeping the original cat from killing him. We rely heavily on the ‘Cat Whisperer’ techniques. This essentially makes us indentured servants to kitty whims. We go leaf peeping on the Skyline Drive and hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Darren has surgery to remove his gallbladder. There are no stones but it was chronically inflamed, scarred and generally just looked beat down and worn out. He is finally feeling much better. My good friend, Kim earned her Doctorate in clinical nursing practice and now I have to call her Dr. Palmer. Despite all the admonishments we had 12 at our Thanksgiving table. Between sequestering, Covid testing and admittedly some risk taking we gathered together and for that I was thankful.
Phase 3 of being held hostage by cats. 
Taking a hike.
December: As I write we are hoping to be able to travel to Bethlehem, PA for a pre-Christmas rendezvous with Don’s brother Mark & his wife Debra to attend the outdoor Chriskindlmarkt. We are planning an intimate Christmas Eve with just Eric & Natalie. We are optimistically hoping to keep our traditional “Dawn & Darren 2nd Christmas Celebration” alive and have made plans. Covid is surging so I am unsure if any of these plans will pan out. Don was just diagnosed with severe hearing loss and will be getting hearing aides. What I am sure of is that people are infinitely resilient, Medical Professionals, First Responders, Teachers & Essential Workers deserve million dollar salaries not athletes, celebrities, performers and former politicians. The post-pandemic world is on the horizon thanks to science and we have a lot of work to do as a society and a nation. We’re all still struggling here and hoping we can get our shit together next year. We wish you comfort and joy in this season and look forward to giving you hugs in 2021.
Love,
The Russos
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