Many of you know who my Grammie Bea is. She is awesomeness in a Grandma. She lives at The Meadows. The Meadows is an assisted living facility for senior citizens. It's a pretty classy joint. It's just been remodeled and is designed in sort of a Tuscan style. I can't say enough about how happy Grammie is at The Meadows. This is shocking to all of us who are related to her. We thought when the time came that she could no longer live alone that she would have to be dragged from her house kicking and screaming. Surprisingly, she went chose to go to the Meadows and she loves the food, activities, friends she has made and mostly the staff who in my humble opinion, are some the kindest people on the planet. It takes very special people to work with senior citizens. Yes, they are wise and wonderful and have amazing things to teach us. But they are also grumpy and complain about anything ranging from noise to the size of piece of pie they get for dessert. But the staff is hip and cool and loves these old people . One of the activities people announced to us tonight that the residents weren't old, they were vintage. I thought that was cute.
So tonight was the Christmas dinner celebration at The Meadows. Family members were invited to purchase a ticket for dinner and join their senior citizen. My Mom bought tickets for all of us and at 5pm (because hello? can you say early bird special) we gathered at the Meadows for some Christmas cheer. Huge shrimp cocktail, asparagus, seafood newburg and awesome prime rib greeted us. Surprisingly, there wasn't a jello or mashed potato in sight. Tiny individual desserts, sherbet punch and very very warm temperatures inside were had by all. (They gotta keep it very warm for all the arthritus and weak lungs in the crowd) Finally, after much waiting, jumping up and down and waiting some more...Santa arrived. Instead of sitting in a chair, he walked around and greeted all the people. He would approach a table and shout out in his jolly voice "Hello Norman! It's wonderful to see you. Ho Ho Ho!" And then he would go around the table greeting each person by name. After a few tables, I started to get teary. He was greeting people named Stanley, Betty, Isabel, Lou and Trudy. There was a Vivian and a Helen, along with an Ester and a Joy. As he made his way to our table with "Katie" and "Jessica", the thought came to me that the room was filled with my four year olds and many people that were 75 and up. But the look on their faces was the same. As all of us who were visiting family members checked our watches and wiped the sweat from our brow, the young and old had pure undiluted joy on their faces. They were in the presence of Santa Claus and it was Christmas and the world is wonderful right in this moment. Katie and Trudy both giggled as Santa reached out his white gloved hand. Jessica and Norman grinned from ear to ear when Santa got closer to where they were sitting.
It was wonderful. And I promised myself that I would try very hard to take a moment and think of things like a very very young or very very old person this year. I will try and enjoy the simple magic of Christmas. And I would like to say that there needs to be more people named Betty. We can't let that name die out. Get on that will you?
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