The End of The Year

Today is Tuesday, December 30, 2008. It is cloudy and cold in Citrus Heights today. A good day to curl up in front of the fireplace with a good book and a warm blanket.
I've spent the last hour or so reading blogs created by our children over the last several weeks. How do the days get away so fast? Of course, most of the month of December was spent getting ready for Christmas. I love this time of year. We pull the Christmas boxes out of the attic and start getting things ready to decorate the house, put up the lights outside, get the Christmas tree decorated, get out the Christmas village and find the special Christmas dishes we use for our Christmas Eve dinner. And I look through the box of Christmas keepsakes.
That box contains Christmas cards, Christmas decorations, and Christmas gifts that our children have made over the years, things I seldom put out anymore but things I treasure nevertheless.
And I keep lots of Christmas cards we have been sent, especially those that have letters written on them. If there is no letter, then I cut off the beautiful fronts and save them to make gift tags or to mark some notebook as "Christmas." I have a red notebook with a beautiful classic card received some year from some business. That is the Christmas song notebook. If the card depicts the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, I keep that to put up on one of the closet doors downstairs. (This year I didn't put the cards up, just didn't get around to it.) Each year there are fewer and fewer cards we get through the mail.
Part of that is due to the fact that I haven't yet sent Christmas cards. I usually write a Christmas letter. You know the kind. Those letters that some people hate and some people love. I, myself, love the letters that tell me all about the family and what each one is doing. It helps me feel connected to many friends I never see anymore. My letter is usually a New Year letter now. And it is a bit different because all of the children are grown. I could write a full page about each one. Well, I could always have done that all along but I tried to keep it to one page. And with 11 of us to write about - well, you can see, the page filled up fast.
For the first time in our lives we have an artificial tree. None of us ever thought it would come to that. But live trees cost $20 to $30 and we found this beautiful tree last year at an after Christmas sale for $32.00. We decided to try it. In two years it would have more than paid for itself. And it is very beautiful. Artificial trees have improved so much over the years. And it is not so heavy, doesn't have to have water added every day, and doesn't drip sap.
Last year after Christmas I purchased two lighted greenery pieces, one for the mantel and one for the bannister. They are easy and very beautiful. This year I decided to use a beautiful satiny cloth as the base for our Nativity set. This set of olive wood we purchased on our second trip to Israel, in Bethlehem. Most years I have used angel hair and strings of lights - drove me crazy but looked nice. This year I decided to use the blue fabric. Wow! how come I waited so long? It was so easy and looks lovely.
Of course, I never could have enough poinsettas or red balls or nativity sets of various sorts. (Artificial poinsettas, mind you, not real.) One of my friends has over 90 nativity sets. I decided that was a nice item to collect. I have about 10 already, mostly small, four from Greece, several from our trips to the Holy Land, several from the Dollar Store, plus one or two glass ones I have received as gifts.
The Christmas village lights up beautifully. I told everyone, "Don't give me any more village. I have no more "land". The development cannot get any larger." My worst problem with the village is that the light posts keep getting "blown over." Some year I will get it right and have them firmly planted.
There wasn't much cooking from me this year. My miserable knees kept me from that activity. Oh well, there has been plenty of food without my doing any. And Christmas Eve supper came off without a hitch. Our little granddaughter thinks it is the coolest thing to eat supper on the fancy glass dishes (remember those snack sets - 4 to a box- that were such a popular wedding gift 50 years ago), with candlelight. Candlelight makes for soft voices and quiet feelings. A great Christmasy feeling! After supper Glen read the Christmas story from the Bible and we sang all the Christmas songs that fit the story. No live Nativity this year!
And then on to Christmas morning. That will be for another day. It is past time to get to work and leave this wonderful computer and my fun of writing. Well, that's all for today.