So for the past month or so I’ve been sharing my sad story about how I would be without my Sydney Rose for Christmas this year (witness my last post).  I had no Christmas tree, no decorations except for my white lights on my front kitchen window and little Christmas wreathes on the silly pink flamingos down in the side yard.

I had been looking at past Christmas photos and missing my baby for several weeks.  She’s a good daughter and calls me and lets me know what she’s up to and what her plans are.  Remember she moved to Oregon last summer so it’s nice to be kept in the loop a little.   My understanding was that she would be flying with her employer to Florida and while there working as a nanny, she would be spending Christmas with her dad. She had told me she would keep in communication on travel day as is SOP (Standard Operating Procedure).  We always let each other know when we land safely.  But to add insult to injury, Syd Rose being the good daughter she is, decided she would also call me when she actually got on the airplane.  Now I’m not one to turn down a phone call from my daughter so I did not balk at the fact that it would be before 6:00 in the morning on Monday and so I was expecting that call.

Sydney called me at 5:45 am to let me know she was on the plane ready to take off.  She said, “Okay Momma, I’m on the plane, I’ll call you on my next stop.” With that assurance, she hung up and I laid in bed waiting for the alarm to go off in fifteen minutes to start my day.  A few hours later I got a text saying she was running to the next terminal and that she would call when she landed next in Florida, which as it turned out, she never did.

About an hour or so after getting her text,  I decided I should finally confront and start my Christmas shopping.  I already knew I was already going to be mailing Sydney a year’s supply of contact lenses, but I still needed to get something for my Dad and Nancy. Sergio, who works me me at City Hall,  asked what my lunch plans were, and I told him.  I didn’t think anything of it, because we sometimes work out for lunch (them cross-fit training, me shooting hoops) or we head downtown as a group and grab something to eat.  But I told him I was shopping, which I quickly did, then headed back to work for the shock of my life.

I arrived back at my office and turned the corner to my work cubicle and there was a stranger sitting in my chair. At first my mind couldn’t register what I was seeing.  The office was pretty much empty and the front door locked during the lunch hour, and while my first thought was Sydney Rose, my mind wouldn’t allow me to grasp that at first.  But clearly her smile and “Hi Momma!” assured me my mind wasn’t playing tricks and I realized that she really was here in Ventura, not in Florida!   I dropped all packages, jacket and purse on the ground and grabbed her and kissed her and cried tears of joy.  I asked how long she would be here, thinking maybe she had just made it go right to swing by to see me on her way to her dad’s, but she said it was for a complete week! Shocked, I asked how long had she known, and she said for over a month!!  I had no clue, no idea, and I learned how everyone had been in on it including my dad, several of her friends and Sergio (who had been texting her and letting her know when I was out of the office).
What a rush!  What a relief!  What a gift!!  I left work early and spent the rest of the day catching up, holding hands or just being with her with my arms around her, and just enjoying her company.

The next evening, Christmas Eve, we had a big blazing fire in the fire pit in the backyard with my dad, Sydney’s friend Cheyenne who was home on leave (she enlisted last summer in the Navy), Steve and Eve Mimiaga and even Staci Brown came over to hang out.  The warmth I felt that night could of been the warmer-than-normal weather, or the rum or the fire itself, but it was most definitely the warmth of love and friendship and family.
Christmas morning I woke up with Sydney Rose, she got up and baked a batch of delicious homemade cinnamon rolls and we made it down to Grandpas for breakfast.  And we went to the movies in the afternoon with the Mimiaga family, and we had dinner at my dad’s as a family.

It was a typical Christmas, but it was also a sort of Christmas miracle for me.  I had been resolved to be without my Syd for the first time since she was born.  And though it was still a frugal Christmas, and we never did get that damn tree up or get the decorations out, I venture to bet it will always be my best Christmas ever.