Holiday Update 3

Finally – Christmas.  I say it every year – that Christmas has just snuck up on me – but it was especially bad this year.  We were unable to go to Utah to spend it with our children so I did not have the luxury of knowing I will have a shopping day before and no need to plan ahead so gifts could be mailed.  I literally shopped on Christmas Eve.  I sent digital gift cards, and then made some phone calls.  (I know I’m SO bad)  I vow, here and now, to do a better job next year.  The thing is, despite the opportunity for this year to be depressing (since my heart is in Utah with the grandkids) it really wasn’t.  My sister-in-law, Linda, came to dinner on Christmas Eve.  We had a pleasant evening visiting.  I slept in yesterday morning, then we puttered around together for the morning.  We opened some gifts. Santa gave Monte a new mailbox!  I’m SO excited about that.  He gave me a Star Trek version of Scene It.  And Bill & Stephanie gave me a boxed set of Star Trek movies!! He swears he and Santa were not in cahoots.  Then we went and sat in the dark, ate popcorn, drank a bladder buster of soda and saw the movie True Grit.  It was a good movie.  I liked it as much as the original with John Wayne and that’s saying something.  After that we went to lunch at Linda’s house and visited with Linda and Emmie and Bradley and Anna & Jeff.  We finished off with a quiet evening at home.  Great stuff.

Holiday Update 2

 The next event of note was our annual Gingerbread Party.  I’ll preface this report with a brief review of what precipitated this party in the first place.  One of the traditions I had while my children were growing up was making gingerbread houses with them and (sometimes) their friends.  When Monte and I moved to Minnesota our daughters were already in college in Utah and their lives were well underway.  Bill was entering high school.  I felt distinctly obsolete and I went through a depression that took me a several years to actually get a handle on.  By that time, Bill had finished high school and gone on a Mission.  I had fallen into a serious apathy about Christmas, I kept saying I hated it.  I remember being a real killjoy – just thinking about it makes me sad. I went through the motions, more or less, I remembered “the reason for the season” just fine; but I could not seem to find the cheer.  One afternoon I realized that what I was REALLY missing about Christmas was the traditions I’d observed with my children.  That was what inspired the Annual Gingerbread Party. My intention is to have a party that is specifically for the children in the family.  I want them to get to know their Auntie Jan and to have memories of spicy gingerbread and creative expression in connection with Auntie Jan’s house.  Usually Wyatt and Willa (my niece and nephew who live next door) help me do the baking but I’ve been so busy this year that I let it get too late to be able to work around all our schedules, so I baked 14 houses.  I like big houses so that there is plenty of “scope for the imagination” when decorating.  This year we really had a blast. We made some Christmas tree ornaments as the children arrived.  Then we had hot dogs and mac & cheese for lunch and decorated the houses after that.  Bill, Stephanie, Ben, & Elodie joined us in a video conference on the computer. I had sent the gingerbread house pieces to Bill so he could put the together and they would have a house to decorate. It was SO much fun to listen while everyone caught up with each other.  The kids had so much fun and were really well behaved. What a great family we have.  NO more depression at Christmas.  I do miss my children and especially my grandchildren at this time of year, but I love my little nieces and nephews and especially my sisters-in-law so much.  I’ve embedded the photo album containing pics of this party into the slideshow in this blog.

Holiday Update

   Okay, here we go.  At Thanksgiving Monte and I went to Flower Mound, Texas to spend it with Monte’s brother, Scott, and his family. We had Thanksgiving dinner with Scott & Sue, their daughter Megan and her husband Mark, their sons Myles, Marshall, and Marc, and some family friends.  Dinner was great.  Scott usually does the turkey but he had recently had surgery on his shoulder so he “instructed” Marshall in how to stuff the turkey and put it in the oven.  Then Sue and I (and other members of the family) cooked a lineup of really tasty things.  The boys watched football (of course) and Scott napped – his pain meds were pretty effective.  Sue’s friend Sharon had provided a variety of pies so, when we were capable of eating again, we engaged in a sort of taste test.  Sharon repeatedly declaring that they weren’t any good.  In a roomful of men and teenage boys the pie was declared eminently edible, and they did – well we all did.

   The next day we went to the temple.  Marshall will be leaving on his mission to Ontario, Canada in January and needed to receive his endowments.  What a great honor it was to be able to be there for that event with him.  Marshall is a valiant young man, an excellent example of what it means to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We topped off the trip by having a celebratory dinner at a Mexican restaurant where we consumed multiple baskets of chips and salsa, some pretty great Mexican food, and celebrated Marshall’s accomplishment along with celebrating his birthday (it was also Scott’s birthday!) Whew!