I don't know when it began. With Michele? When my grandma fell down the stairs? Even before that? In one's life, things come, sad or funny, kind of alternating, but this year I find it too much -- from little troubles to death of close ones. Our heating furnace gave out in February; of course during the few weeks California FORCES you to be heating up the house. Two months later, my fellow climber friend Vendula got an ugly knee injury while skiing at Mt. Shasta. Two men who were with her, slid her down the slope for a while on skis, she crawled some, all the way to the spot where a rescue helicopter could pick her up. Those things happen, I said to myself, and after all it ended fairly well.

Our home-made Christmas tree decorations made of dough, were this year enhanced by Tom's snakes.

Then it got nastier. My grandma fell down some stairs. Badly. Doctors first talked about a broken wrist. Later they admitted some damaged vertebrae. My mom was fighting an outbreak of shingles at the time. She could not be with our kids due to the risk of smallpox; she could not travel back see to her mother across the Atlantic. When she got somewhat fit enough to watch our children, we drove out with my Hippo to a small trip. To talk with our friend Michele, the restaurant owner, about her web site -- but we did not find her among the living.

At the beginning of October I went on a ladies-only trip to Yosemite. After coming back, news about the death of my grandma awaited me at home. In November, a husband of my virtual friend Dina died in a traffic accident which he did not cause. A young man (OK, after all he was younger than me), a father of three small children, the oldest being younger than our Tommy.

Tom is deeply engaged in decorating of a gingerbread house wall, our new annual tradition.

I was not feeling very merry at the start of December. It all seemed like silly accidents. Hippos mother started to mention pain and gall bladder. She was aware of the risk associated with surgery at her age, but she resolutely declared that she rather take that than the pain. Underwent the surgery, and since nurses would bring a cordless phone to their post-op room, we could even chat with her.

I was chasing off unpleasant thoughts and tried to enjoy pre-Christmas preparations with our children. I made dough for the (inedible) tree decorations, invited our neighbor Sasha, and we spent one long morning in a very productive way. Tommy surprised me, for he showed incredible patience with the sticky material and besides flat plaques cut out of a flat dough sheet he made a beautiful baby and a hedgehog; then he came up with his own idea -- snakes. There are snakes in the Bible, I thought, I just did not know if they were adequate as a Christmas symbol. Although the dough and straw decorations, suns and little critters appear to me more like symbols of a pagan solstice, only on the surface distracted by obligatory angels of baby Jesus in a swaddle. And when suns and animals, why not snakes? Isn't snake a symbol of spring and warmth? Immortality, rebirth? How much is a hedgehog or a bunny BETTER? To keep it short -- we've got Christmas snakes this year.

Lizzy, too, decorated her side of the gingerbread house according to her own imagination.

Then we discovered that our roof was leaking. I admit -- water dripping right into the shower stall is much better than the same coming through to the kitchen or perhaps a bed. I certainly did not have to deal with mopping and emptying buckets, and that was an advantage. Yet it was clear that the situation needed a speedy solution. I called our neighbor Guillermo. He rescued us in the spring when the furnace broke. He helped us again -- sized up our skylight, checked out a crack, said that changing a plastic bubble is not much of a problem. Now it started raining really hard, so he called a helper, they wrapped the whole skylight in a black garbage bag, planning to wait till Monday, which was forecast to be even shower-free, to fix it without more damage.

Which one shall we cut and take home?

On Saturday the twentieth we promised the kids that we'd go fetch a tree on a farm in Santa Cruz Mountains. Tom and Lisa were both quite impatient and announced every day who of their friends finished decorating their tree, expressing worries whether we'd be ready for Christmas. We had much more serious worries -- despite the bag on the skylight, water was still dripping in the shower -- it began to be clear that the fault was not limited to a crack in the plastic. Guillermo came again (despite it being Saturday) to check it out and said that it most likely was a frame around the skylight, which was not tight anymore, and that on Monday they'd be bound to take it apart. We counted on this anyway -- it turned out that our skylight probably remembers days of the hippies, for it had a non-standard size that could be either special-ordered in a few weeks, or shrunk by Guillermo to a width matching ready-made bubbles.

So far we hoped that dripping would not turn into pouring, and went for the tree. Although forecast was gloomy, we managed to obtain one without getting rained on. Having thus spent quality time with my family, I dared to party in the evening. My girlfriends got together at Vendula's and they invited a hair-stylist. I told myself that there was nothing to cut on my hair, but I'd like to chat with my friends. On the way there I stopped over a grocery store, to bring some appetizer to the party. I got somewhat delayed, for there were ambulances dithering in the parking lot, and orderlies were just rolling out a person under a blanket. It gave me a start, for I somehow started to have a feeling that bad things accumulated around me, and perhaps it was I who had been attracting them.

Our Christmas tree is ready. Will Santa come?

The ladies' party turned out well; they talked me into getting a haircut. Mostly when I saw how good Tina was. She shook her head over my hair a bit, but then she said to try something, if I don't mind getting my hair short. Girls who know my aversion towards hair-dressers and having somebody touch my head, looked curiously at me, which did not make my situation any easier. I liked the result though, and it seems that the hairdo works in various situations, so I'm the one who's satisfied.

My Hippo did not speak to me at least ten minutes after I came back home, and then we had a long debate about why guys feel that a woman should have a long hair, while women feel that they need to cut it. Hippo's atavistic theory says that a woman without hair looks sick, and thus ill-suited for a partner. My theory says that a woman without (long) hair is missing them for the master of all creatures has yanked them out after she was disobedient, and guys don't want a disobedient woman. We had a good laugh about this one. Then eight o'clock struck in Czech and Hippo called his mom to the hospital. They told him they moved her back to post-op station in a critical state.

Back in May, Lisa and granny Jožinka played with a balloon.

My several following days remain in a fog. Beginning with that Saturday, we knew it was hopeless. We waited for a phone call knowing, we could not expect any miracle. And that once the call comes we would learn only the worst. I was decorating the tree with the kids on Sunday, but that, too, is foggy -- suddenly it was just a chore, a necessity to carry out effective movements, to keep the family going. During this time, Guillermo's gang showed up and spent two days at our house, fixing our skylight. I don't recall it much, but we paid the bill and the water (seems to have) stopped dripping in, and it, at least, was behind us.

On Thursday just before midnight local time, Hippos mom died. We knew it within a few minutes. One can prepare for it and pile up rational reasons, but it's no good after all. On Thursday Tom had an afternoon school with a Christmas pageant, I kept Lisa at home in the morning as well; we wanted to tell them about granny's passing quietly, not in the midst of some morning chaos. I think that Lisa did not quite understand what we were talking about. Tommy knew quite well, and keeps wondering ever since, how it works with the lighting up a candle in the cemetery. He has no concept of funerals, but he remembers our spring visit to a graveyard in Skalice, where we lit a candle for our uncle Honza.

Tom at his Christmas pageant with a Hawaiian theme.

We were to go to a Christmas pageant in the afternoon. I would like to write something about it, but it was one of the (many) things that stay in the fog. I was happy that Tommy participated and quite vigorously (as he himself called it, beautifully) sang along; I'd say that he sang most of all, loudly, but don't tell him that. If there was any pageant at Lisa's pre-school, we missed it. On one of those foggy days, she came home with felt ears -- the principal who met me when I picked Lisa up, said that Lisa wanted to a be a Bethlehem Cat, but there is no official cat in the nativity scene, and they talked her into being a sheep. Thus there was some happening at the pre-school, but I just don't know if parents were invited. Lisa does not seem to be traumatized, so she must have coped.

On Friday we left our kids at the preschool and went to a formal Christmas party held by Hippo's employer. We got back home relatively soon (we had to pick up our kids no later than nine). Simona dropped by at ten -- brought us a plate of cookies and lentil soup. It's great that there are still women in this world who, without much talking, bring you a soup and an some sweets, when you're miserable.

On the next day we had Vendulka over for dinner so that she would not be home alone. He husband flew to Czech Republic to see his dad in critical state, and she found herself in a depressive waiting room for death, the same we spent some time ourselves in just a few days ago. Her father-in-law died on Sunday. I must say this was the proverbial last drop. I felt it was too much. Too much sadness and tragedy around me, concentrated in a very short time period.

Then I noticed the approaching Christmas. And began to hope that the old pagans were right -- that under the thin skin of a Christian holiday, there are more fundamental things -- mostly solstice, a turn for better. I'd say that we all need it.