Christmas Nostalgia

When I was growing up, my family always opened Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. We had a big dinner on Christmas Day with some Aunts and Uncles, but the special time was the night before. As my older sisters were married, the night included their husbands and children. For several years, we all gathered every Christmas Eve at my oldest sisters house, with my parents, all of their children, most of their grandchildren to visit, eat, exchange some small gifts, and sing Christmas Carols.
Since my Dad passed away September of 2012, followed by my mother this September, this was the first year of my life to not be with my parents on Christmas Eve. Les and I still went to my sisters. It was a little sad. My brother in law had a massive heart attack 2 years ago, followed by a series of strokes. He barely is able to breathe, and has no strength. The family is aging. That is the fact. It is sad. It is hard. It is life.

Barbara still wanted to sing the traditional songs. Of course, it wasn't the same. My Dad loooooved to sing those Christmas Carols. He always sang them too fast. We had song sheets with the words of 8 songs. We would finish O Come All Ye Faithful, and before we could take a breath, Daddy would start Joy to the World. He never could understand why we would start to giggle. Those memories flooded as we sang those songs this year.

Sweet memories. We usually take a lot of pictures, but I think this is the only picture taken that night. I found a few pictures from 2 years ago I can post, just to remember those days.

I feel better now!!!!!!!!!!!

Celebrating Christmas

Les has worked very hard on the house the last couple of months, and it is looking GOOD. I am sure he will write some construction project posts sometime...but for now, I just will report on our Christmas.
When we moved into this neighborhood we wanted to make friends and be a positive influence. We have connected with some of the neighbors and enjoyed making new friends. We decided to have a Christmas party/open house to celebrate Christmas and get to know our neighbors. We planned the party for Friday, Dec. 13. The week before the party, we took invitations to every house on our street for the two blocks around our house. We took invitations to some we had met before,  and introduced ourselves to several we had not met. Some houses, we just left invitations on the door.  We had no idea who would show up. We invited a few other friends to mix with the neighbors. The night of the party, we had 11 neibhbors come!!! including one young woman who came by to say Hi before she had to go to work at 5, and one who came when she got off work at 10:30. We had a great time just visiting and getting acquainted.

Sunday, Dec. 22 was our family Christmas celebration. All four daughters, four sons in law, and 9 grandchildren gathered at Melodys. Wonderful family time. I will just let the pictures do the talking. (there's a bunch of them).