Christmas and the time leading up to it

Dec 29, 2023 09:42

Christmas prep at my house started before Thanksgiving this year. We had the tree up the weekend before. I'm not sure what I think about the new tree. It didn't take long to set up, but it took a long time to straighten out the branches. Putting on the lights was about the same, except the old star didn't fit. We put an angel that we have had for years on top of the tree instead. The new tree is also a little narrower than the old one, so a little less room for ornaments. The branches also are not as well shaped for setting things in them, so the smallest rubber ducky I had wouldn't sit on one. I stuffed him in a little stocking. I also accidentally broke two glass balls, one of which was a green one that was one of my favorites.

We were not expecting any company on Thanksgiving day this year so Dad didn't fix a whole turkey. Then Nick and Laura decided to come up at the very last minute. They had just had their baby on the Monday before Thanksgiving, and she was six weeks early. After dinner everybody but me went down to the hospital to see the baby. I stayed home and watched the dog show. I dozed though most of it.

The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas has mostly been a blur. I don't remember doing much the week after Thanksgiving except to finish decorating the rest of the house, and mixing up gingerbread dough. I also mixed up my cranberry jellies and my peanut butter fudge early. Some time in there I made Butterfingers and malted milk balls too. The first week of December was a blur of baking. I remember on the 2nd, I went to a child friendly performance of The Nutcracker with Mom, Laura, and Eden. Then I worked on the fourth at Flyin' Lion making cranberry white chocolate chip cookies. On the fifth, I spent the afternoon at Samaritan's Purse with my Sunday School class processing shoeboxes. My job was to tape them shut so they could be put in the big cartons.

A couple days later, on the 8th, I was decorating gingerbread cookies, and I heard Mom gasp and yell from the family room. Izzy was dying, and she thought he was already dead. I picked him up, and he started moving. I was able to hold him. He had been cuddled up against Nitro that morning, and they had been preening each other for several days. After that we had to bury him. Nitro got very chirpy after that. That weekend sucked because I also got a bad letter from Medicaid so I had to scan and send a whole bunch of Medicare statements to the DSS. I still haven't heard back from them so I don't know if they will pay for my dentist appointment in January. I also need to know If I still have Medicaid because if not, I need to be given the opportunity to switch to a different Medicare plan. Up until recently, I had both Medicare and Medicaid. I've been praying about that and had others praying too. The Sunday School Christmas party was that weekend too, but it was fun.

I had another full week the second week of December. Mom and I took a day trip to Troy, NC to meet some friends who live in Sanford, NC. We ate lunch and exchanged gifts and then hit the little shops. I bought a novel and a jar of pickled watermelon rinds at one of the shops. We stopped at Ollie's on the way home, but I didn't get anything there this time. I didn't get anything at the variety store we stopped at either.

Then we had a party at our house that Thursday for one of Mom's church groups. Dad fixed Ecuadorian potato soup, curried chicken salad, and mincemeat cobbler. I passed out caramels as well.

The church Christmas concert was on the 17th, and I enjoyed it. They didn't have any numbers that really blew me away this year though. Most of the week of the 18th was spent doing last minute Christmas stuff like wrapping presents, but I did have budgie visitors arrive on the 21st. I think Nitro likes having them here. She and Maximus greeted each other when they got here, and she likes his singing. Sweet Caroline doesn't say much.

Christmas eve was church and Christmas dinner. It was ham, cranberry sauce, scalloped potatoes, brussels sprouts, jello, and bourbon cake. It took me three days to make that cake because it had to be glazed three times.

We started in early on Christmas morning. Dad and I get up early every day, but Mom was up by 7:30 so we opened our stockings then. I got mostly bath stuff in mine. Then we opened presents. I got more bath stuff, some hummus, built bars, and phone cards for the consumables. For non -consumables, I got an exercise ball, a towel with velcro on it so it stays on when I wrap it around myself, a sweater, a gel pack that can be made into a hot pack or an ice pack, a kaleidoscope, and two nice things from Des. A little crank radio, and a cute budgie pillow that I still need to stuff.

We went to Nick's house after that and we intended to stay for only a couple hours, but we ended up staying all day. He had fixed eggnog pancakes and bacon for brunch along with mimosas. We had brought shrimp, a cheese ball, crackers, olives, and leftover cake. We exchanged gifts after breakfast, and I got a cookie sheet and some ginger candy. Then we took naps, and Mochi took hers with me on Nick's sofa. We put on Christmas Vacation after that, but had several interruptions. First, Mom paused the movie and put on a Christmas playlist for Eden. That messed up the sound on the TV because it runs though Alexa. It took Nick a while to get the sound from the movie back on. Then Eden wanted to watch the Snowman, which is a Christmas cartoon that I hadn't seen since I was a kid and we had taped it on VHS. We finished the movie after that. We also passed the baby around during the movie. I don't know if we will ever watch Christmas Vacation again. There was quite a bit of cussing in it that Mom had forgotten about. My family doesn't have patience for that anymore.

The day after Christmas, we left for Pipestem, West Virginia to meet Dad's family. It rained really bad and was foggy, so Dad missed a turn to stay on 77 and instead got on 81. He went 20 miles out of the way before he realized why the GPS kept telling him to turn around. I played with my kaleidoscope and crank radio in the car. When we got to the park, we checked into our cabin, and the roof leaked. I'm glad it did because we were moved from the cabin, which was even farther away from the lodge than last year's cabin was, to rooms on the same floor of the lodge as most of the family. We spent most of our time up in the lobby. We had some bad things happen though. Uncle Kevin and Aunt Cindy hadn't been there for 24 hours, and her oxygen machine broke. Kevin and Dad couldn't fix it so they had to go home. We didn't get much chance to witness to Cindy. Later that day, Mom and I hiked down to the lake with some other family members and the dogs. Cindy's sister, Cherri, and her husband, Brian, had come and they brought their dog, Skittles. After the hike, was a nap, and then we played catchprase until dinner. We got pizza that night and the hotel staff let us use the room off the side of the lobby to have our dinner.

Yesterday morning was rough on me. I clogged my toilet up and had to wait a couple hours for housekeeping to bring a plunger. I got nasty water all over my bathroom floor. Then we had breakfast in Mom and Dad's room. We finished up the cake and had leftover pizza. I made one last stop at the gift shop and bough a honey bear. After we packed up and left, we stopped at the southwest Virginia farmer's market on the way home. I didn't buy anything this time, but Dad bought black walnuts to snack on and a bag of beans for Laura's grandmother. They were a kind she likes.

Last night Mom got really sick with throwing up and diarrhea. Dad thinks she got food poisoning, but we don't know what from since he and I ate the same things she did and we aren't sick. I hope she gets better soon because I would like to go to CVS and Walgreen's and see if they have any Christmas stuff left. I'm pretty sure Walmart and Target are cleaned out of theirs.

thanksgiving, budgies, family, baking, christmas

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