Week Before Christmas.............

I have not been writing much of late. There really has not been a lot to say. Here it is a week before Christmas and it does not seem at all like it. We do have snow. Quite a bit of snow actually. It's pretty. I try not to drive far in it although I would love to get out and take some snow pictures if only it would stop long enough for the roads to clear a bit. I am not one for driving on snowy roads, I can't see well enough.
I can not get in the mood for celebrations. All the news that comes out of Washington is either disgusting or scary. What this man is doing is just getting the middle class into further debt. Interest rates up, social security we get a raise that is immediately taken by Medicare. So no gain there. So have to be thrifty at Christmas, no spending if possible.
I didn't put up a tree because I didn't want to disrupt everything downstairs.

I usually love to decorate. I love the sparkle. Gabby and Tony with Cooper have the two rooms downstairs and all the Christmas stuff is packed away down there and hard to get to. SO I figure it won't hurt to go a year without. Besides with the cats and Cooper would get into everything.

As far as gift giving well I took the easy way out with that too. I ordered Figis for Jason, Justin and Laura. That is cheese and summer sausage and treats. Simple and easy and can always be used. I was not going to do anything but simply can't just not do something. The only ones here this year will be Gabby and family so no big meal either.
Having said that I spent the last two days making cheese balls. I made some chocolate treats and today make candied pecans. I am not at all sure it will be worth doing much more. I don't expect company but am prepared if we do get some.

I do miss having everyone home but peoples lives change. Jason has 3 cats one of whom is sick, needs daily meds. Laura just moved downstate and we don't see Justin that often anymore. Tristen is not living here now, although I expect we will have him for a day at least. He will just be coming back from his holiday in Mexico. He got to swim with Dolphins and must have had a good time. He gets to do things we could never do with him. We miss him so much, but life moves on. Now I am used to him not being here it would be hard to go back.

Life changes year to year. Things never stay the same. Memories of Christmas's past are treasures, or should be. I know mine are. I am not at all sure my family is that sentimental. When the grandkids were young we had some good years. When Justin came home and everyone was home, we had a blow up bed in the living room one year and all the bedrooms full. We played hunt the thimble and hide and seek. Danielle and Alex, Gabby, Justin, Hayley and Teal and Carrie. Then Jason and Laura with Joe (back then) and one year Joes girls. They wondered why I didn't want to play haha, well those meals took a lot of prep and planning. Not just Christmas dinner but breakfasts and snacks, lunches and all that. Then the linen changes on the beds. I am not sure I could do that all now, but I am sure I could rise to the occasion.

The trees these days are fake, but they look so real that it's hard to tell. Back when I was a child the trees were spindly little things but with icicles and real candles they looked so pretty. Maybe just because they looked magic in the more sparse conditions. Our gifts were not under the tree but on the end of the bed. I do remember waking in the night (probably early evening ) and nothing being there, so I would try to stay awake and I must have believed because I remember watching for Santa on a very mood lit night. The frost on the windows........but I never saw him and by morning the gifts would be there.

My gifts would be from Mum and Dad, auntie Ivy and uncle Norman and my Nan and Granddad. Usually books and one other thing from my parents. I remember most of them. I actually loved the books and still have some of them. I have my Teddy bear the one thing I did love. Other years they didn't do so well (I am ungrateful) I remember a doll dressed as a Dutch girl, it supposedly could walk when it's hands were held but I didn't like it. I have never liked dolls, always animals like my Teddy. Then one year a "twin" pram. I really did not like that. I had never seen anyone with one like it, I don't know what they were thinking. I never let them know that I didn't like them and so they never knew. We got the bear from Warren's in the village and remember seeing it and saying I liked it so that year they must have got it right.

When Gabby and her family move I will have to go through all my Christmas stuff and sell some of them in my yard sale. No one else would want them. I love my ornaments but as each year goes by it is harder to get it all out and decorate. Maybe some day we will have a smaller house and that would help.