Christmas With Mom and Dad

The first Saturday of this month my side of the family got together to celebrate Christmas. There were 27 of us total. Four generations. Everyone was there (except a nephew who was taking the SAT test), sisters, brother, in-laws, nieces, nephews all the way down to my parents' six great-grandchildren.

This was a Christmas celebration that I both looked forward to and dreaded. This was the first Christmas since my mom's stroke. One thought that went through all of our minds after Mom's stroke, I think, was that Christmas will never be the same. Mom always made Christmas special. Always. From the traditional foods (Spritz, Potato Bologna, Fruit Cake, Pecan Dreams, Swedish Brown Beans, Swedish Rye Bread, Mashed Potatoes, etc...), to decorating every single room in their house, to the mantel with 29 stockings, to the schedule for the evening: everyone assigned jobs to help get the meal on the table, eating a wonderful, abundant meal, washing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen (this added much to the drama of waiting, but we did it this way all my growing up years), then finally getting to open presents.

My dad was able to reserve some nice rooms in the home where my mom is living right now. We did our best to carry on with some of the traditions, namely the Christmas stockings. We were able to hang them all up across the bar in one of the rooms. They were quite the sight:

My oldest niece is a cosmetologist. She and her mom (my sister) picked out a pretty Christmas sweater for Mom and put some make-up on Mom and fixed her hair very nicely. I thought she looked so very pretty. Here is Mom and Dad together:

 I love that Mom is able to give a full smile and not the half-smile she gave three months ago.


We all enjoyed lunch and dinner together. 

I brought some Swedish Potato Bologna for Mom. She has made it for Christmas every year for as long as I can remember. One of our local grocery stores makes it and sells it through the holidays.

 It's so good to see Mom feeding herself. She manages a lot with her left hand and is able to eat mostly regular food. Dad helps her with each meal.

This little one (one of my niece's twins) was being kind of fussy, so Hubby took her and sat down at the piano and starting playing. She sat there for the longest time listening. It was sweet.

My wonderful, dear, sweet husband prepared his own gift for his mother-in-law. He spent a month looking through his piano music picking out hymns to play for my mom.  Mom has occasionally hummed along to a familiar song and he wanted to gift her with well-loved hymns to trigger that part of her brain.

We gathered in one room and sang together.

As we were singing some Christmas songs, I watched Mom. At one point I saw her mouthing the words to O Come All Ye Faithful!!! Mom doesn't say any words. She readily shakes her head "no" and with some effort can nod her head "yes", so to see her forming words was just amazing! I was so taken up in the moment, that I didn't get a picture or video. Nevertheless, I will never forget that moment! Never.

O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem.
Come and behold Him, born the King of angels

I am so very thankful that my mom is one of those Faithful.

Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad. I love you both!

My Very Own

Last December 5, a questions in the Wednesday Hodgepodge  was whether or not we liked Fruitcake. My answer, in part, was::
"My mom always makes fruitcake and I really like it. She forgets that I like and thinks my brother is the only one who likes it. :) I hope she makes it this year..."

We celebrated Christmas with my side of the family the weekend before Christmas. On Sunday we met everyone at church for worship. My mom walked up to me, unzipped my purse, and proceeded to stuff something wrapped in aluminum foil in there. I looked down and grinned. I knew what was in there.

My very own Fruitcake.

When we got home, I put it in the freezer to save for later. Yesterday I thawed it out and this morning I enjoyed several slices for breakfast.

  Mmmmmm!!!

Thanks, Mom! It's very yummy!

A Christmas Gift

I have a thing for dishes. When we lived in Singapore I discovered a kind of outlet store for dishes. It was basically a warehouse with the dishes piled on the floor all over the place. What was being sold there were seconds of dishes that were manufactured in Indonesia. Some of them had very obvious flaws, others were more difficult to see. The best thing about those dishes is that they were very inexpensive! A dinner plate was around $1.25, a salad plate was 75 cents. Over the course of the three years we lived there I bought four or five (five or six?) sets of dishes. If you come visit me for a weekend, I can serve you each meal on a different set of dishes.

So you'd think I would stop looking at dishes, huh?

Well...

Last fall I was wandering through a Crate & Barrel store (one of my favorite things to do) and a set of dishes caught my eye. They had an Asian theme to them. On a whim, I added those dishes to my Christmas list and my sweet hubby spoiled indulged me and gave them to me for Christmas.

Last night I fixed Fried Rice with some egg rolls and thought it was a perfect time to use those dishes. (See the bottle of soy sauce with the price tag sticker on top? It's one I bought when we lived in Singapore. I keep refilling it. I left the sticker on the lid because it says "Tanglin Market" the name of the grocery store I shopped at. Call me sentimental.)

Sooo many things I love about the dishes: The green square plate, the ginkgo leaf shaped plate and motif on the other plates, the little ginkgo bowls for sauces.

It just makes meal time fun when the dishes are fun.

(I like Ginkgo trees. I bought an artificial one when we live in Singapore  You can see it behind Megan in this photo.) (She's working hard on a Christmas craft.)

Post Christmas Post

Hubby and I are in the post-Christmas mode. That involves lots of laundry, vacuuming, putting away Christmas decorations, eating leftovers.

I called lunch today "Christmas Dinner, Take Two".  Here's the line-up waiting for time in the microwave.

We had a wonderful Christmas. We started out the celebrations with traveling to Iowa the weekend before Christmas to celebrate with each of our parents and siblings. The drive down was not fun as there had been a big snow storm the day before and the roads still weren't very good. But Hubby was a good driver and it took us an hour and a half longer, but we made it. We enjoyed the time with our extended families. Caleb and Amanda met us there. The grandparents were happy to see them as it had been quite a while since they last did.

The storm left behind some beauty:

The drive back north was much, much better, especially since Megan and Zach were driving up here to celebrate Christmas with us all! I texted Megan when we turned onto the interstate and she texted back that they were only 6 miles behind us. Couldn't have timed that if we tried!

Sunday night we enjoyed some yummy spaghetti and a craft time. I got a crazy idea to look for a fun, easy, cheap craft on Pinterest and this is what I came up with:

Note to self: dollar store clothes-pins are really cheap for a reason. Bad, bad quality. But they still made interesting snowflakes.

Some people where a tad excited about the craft time:

Such a goof.

I found our craft box when I was looking for some paint brushes. The kids had fun remembering some of the things in there.

 See that red zippered thing with colored pencils in it? I used that when I was a kid. There are also some different kind of crayons from when Hubby was a kid.

I found a couple of things of Play-Doh in the craft box that was still fresh. I think it's been in there for a good five years. Zach used it as a visual-aid to explain to Hubby about something in his car that needs to be fixed. It made me giggle.

Puppy came along and had fun playing in the snow and provided lots of entertainment.

A couple of mornings his people went out to go snow-shoeing in the field next to our house. Puppy was sad and looking out the windows the whole time. He had some pretty funny sounding whines.

We opened gifts on Christmas Eve since Megan and Zach had to head back for work on the 26th.

Puppy had a gift to open and went at it until he got out the toy.

I discovered this photo where it looks like the Puppy was helping Caleb open his gift. Silly.

We very much enjoyed having everyone here to celebrate. We are thankful they were all willing to travel up here so we could all be together. All of those kids are so special to us. My cousin wrote on his Facebook page about how their in-laws complete their family so perfectly. I believe that is true for us as well. Our kids spouses fit in and complete this family as if God planned it that way.... Hmmmm.... ;)

Joy to the world the Lord has come!

Let earth receive her King!

Let every heart, prepare Him room

And heaven and nature sing!

Teamwork

Hubby and I have been busy, busy, busy getting things ready for celebrating Christmas with the kids here. Over the weekend we made cookies, six different kinds as a matter of fact, and the majority have chocolate in some form. Hmmm, I guess I forgot about variety.

Sunday evening Hubby and I worked making a triple batch of Butterhorn Rolls. It sure did help to have a extra pair of hands to help form each roll.

Last year's photo, but be assured, they rolls look the same every time I make them. :)

We decided we make a great team. We got a lot of things accomplished together. I dust, he vacuums. I create dirty dishes, he empties the dishwasher. We go to the grocery store together and he helps carry in the bags and put the food away.

Together, we finally finished decorating  the Christmas tree. I think that's the latest we've done it. We even sorted through some of the decorations. I know I fussed about needing to sort through and then when I was actually doing it, I went and got all mushy and sentimental and couldn't toss very much. Sigh. I think I have a problem.

Here's a few photos I just took with my phone of some of the festiveness.

Sometimes, when we have gone on vacations, we have bought an ornament to hang on our Christmas tree. Here's a shot with just three of those. The top arch shaped ornament is from Sydney, Australia. It's the Sydney Harbour Bridge. (Like how I spelled Harbour there? My spellchecker doesn't.) The star shaped one is from New Zealand and has a Kiwi Bird carved in the middle. (Did you know that the people from New Zealand call themselves Kiwis?) The bottom ornament is from Singapore and called a Merlion. It has the head of a lion and the body of a fish. (Mer meaning fish.) It's the symbol of Singapore. It symbolizes Singapore's origin as a fishing village and Singapura in Malay means Lion City. (Such an educational blog, huh?)

We have several more ornaments from travels, but I just chose these three for today.


This is an ornament some adorable little two year old boy made. (Yes, I got a little teary when I unwrapped it.)

How are all your Christmas celebration preparations coming along?

A Snowy Hodgepodge

 

It snowed yesterday so I think it's time for the Wednesday Hodgepodge! (yeah, I know, random...) Go on over to Joyce's blog and play along. Or you can just read through all those who linked up. Or both.

1. How will you spend 'the night before Christmas'?
Well, that all depends on how "Christmas" is defined. In my world, Christmas is a different day each year and most of the time it is not on December 25th. This year we'll be having our Christmas celebration with the kids on the 24th. So 'the night before Christmas' is on the 23rd. We will all be gathering here and enjoying a spaghetti supper.

2.  What is one thing you are not?
I am not a morning person. But then, I don't think that's a newsflash to anyone who knows me in person, or anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time. (In fact, Sunday morning when I got up, my sweet Hubby brought me a glass of iced tea [yes, I drink it year round] and said as he was walking out of the bedroom, "I'll let you have your wake up time." Smart man. He knows me well after all these years.

3.  Fudge-are you a fan?  Your favorite flavor?
Is there any other flavor than Chocolate? I do like fudge and if it's chocolate with some sort of nuts in it even better. I don't eat much of it because it is super sweet. I don't remember having ever made it myself.

4. Did you attend any craft/vendor fairs in the month of December? Do you prefer homemade goodies or the more professional stalls? Are you giving any homemade gifts this year?
I have not attended a craft fair in a very long time....as in years. I'm only giving one handmade gift and I probably better not say what it is. I will say, I got myself all sidetracked with making those quilts for those adorable twins that I didn't do more handmade things like I thought I might.

5. What's your favorite type of holiday gathering?

My favorite would be when I am with our kids. Last year we celebrated Christmas with them on New Year's Eve or what I called: Happy New Christmas Merry Year's Eve Day. It was a really fun day with them.

6. We're approaching a new year...what's going to be different in 2013?
I know some things I would love to be different, but I have no idea if it will be a reality....

7. Share a favorite scripture, quote, saying, or song lyric relating to peace.

“God can't give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.”

-C.S. Lewis

8.  Insert your own random thought here.
Snow on the ground means snowmobiles zipping around the field next to our house. Blech.

A December Hodgepodge

A little Wednesday Hodgepodge for this December day. Go on over to Joyce's blog and play along. Or you can just read through all those who linked up. Or both.

1.  Share your traditions surrounding the Christmas stocking.
When I was growing up we spent most Christmas Eves at my grandfather's 1919 farm house.There was no fireplace, so we hung Grandpa's socks (with a red heel and toe -- think sock monkey) in the drawers of the built-in buffet in the dining room. We would wake up early and try to sneak down the squeaky stairs. We knew the outside edges of the stairs weren't quite as squeaky and tried to descend by walking along the edges. The stockings always had an orange and a chocolate bar and sometimes a silver dollar.
When I was in junior high, my mom made some stockings for us four kids for their house. She used red felt and scraps from all the clothing she (and us girls) had made over the years. A few years later I made some for my mom and dad and then have made umpteen more as the family grew. My sister has taken over the last several years. Here's a picture of my parents' fireplace. You can see how packed that fireplace is behind my great-niece. (Or is it grand-niece? I still don't know!)

I believe there are twenty-five stockings hanging there.
Here's a closer up, but not very good because it's cropped photo. The girl stockings have mostly flowered fabrics and the boy stockings are checks and plaids and stripes.

I made stockings the first year we were married. The names are candy-cane designed letters crossed stitched on.

 I have enough of that red fabric to make one more stocking...just in case.

Sometimes we don't just hang our stockings on the fireplace.

We haven't always had a fireplace to hang them on. For years we used a peg board (that we are currently using to hand our coats on in the mud room). We have even packed these in a suitcase and taken them to Christmases we celebrated in New Zealand and Australia. I always put a candy-cane in the stockings and we wrap the little gifts (mostly because it's way too tempting to peek inside). We typically open our stockings the night before we open presents. The specific day we do that changes every year. We haven't continued with the stockings with the kids since they were married. I'm the one who made that decision and recently, I've been wondering if that was the right decision. Maybe we need to have a family talk about that this Christmas when we are all together.

2.  How many hours of sleep do you average at night?  Is it enough?
I get anywhere from 7 to 9 hours of sleep at night. The closer to 9 hours of sleep, the more rested I feel. I am blessed to not have to get up early for anything in particular, so I typically sleep until I wake up. I spent a lot of years getting up early with my kids and since I am nothing close to a morning person, the fact that I get to sleep until whenever in the morning is bliss.

3.  If you had to give up one thing for the remainder of this year what would it be?
Give up something this time of year? Isn't that what New Year's resolutions are for?

4.  The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (or Wills and Kate as I like to call them) have announced they're expecting a baby. Do you follow news of the Royals?
Not really. (Sorry, Joyce.) I just hear whatever is said on the news.

5.  For me,  the sound of childhood is__________________.
LEGOS clinking together, coloring, laughter, a boy bounding down the stairs, a girl humming, grilled cheese sandwiches cooking (and likely being burned on one side), macaroni and cheese being stirred,  a piano, saxophone and trumpet being played, snuggles on nights filled with thunderstorms.

6.  Fruit cake-yay or boo? What's your favorite dessert made with fruit?
Yay! My mom always makes fruitcake and I really like it. She forgets that I like and thinks my brother is the only one who likes it. :) I hope she makes it this year... (Mom?) I should look to see if it's in our family cookbook. If it isn't, then I need to copy the recipe next time I am at my parents' house.
Favorite dessert made with fruit.... I made a cherry pie a few weeks ago that was particularly yummy.

7. What is one thing you want to accomplish before 2012 comes to an end?
I want to read The Hobbit. Hubby has convinced me I need to read it before we see the movie. Today I just finished the last book in a series and set The Hobbit on my nightstand. I have ten days before the movie comes out.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.
Here's my son and sweet daughter-in-law showing off their Hobbit feet. Maybe I'll know more of what the heck they are talking about when I get done with that book. (And see the movie.) (See previous question.)

Weekend Tidbits

Just a few tidbits to highlight our weekend:::

>>Hubby and I spent the weekend in the Twin Cities and conquered our Christmas shopping.

>>I like doing the bulk of our shopping together. I like that we can talk through ideas and come to some good answers. (I guess the gift recipients will truly say whether we came up with good answers.) I like that Hubby likes to shop along with me.

>>As far as doing shopping for each other goes, we have a good system. Hubby got up early on Saturday and went out shopping for me while I got to sleep in. Win-win! Later that day I dumped him dropped him off at a Panera for a couple of hours while I tackled shopping for him. It was a bit funny trying to hide the packages from each other. I wasn't allowed in the back end of the car and he wasn't allowed to look under the quilt in the back seat.

>>The movie theater in our teeny-tiny town closed last summer. Ugh. Now, in order to see a movie, we have to drive at least and hour to do so. So, while we were in the Cities (that's what all the cool people in Minnesota call the Twin Cities), Hubby and I saw two movies. Saturday night we saw Lincoln. My word for that movie is: SUPERB. It's a long movie, but it really doesn't seem like it. What an impossibly hard period of time to be president. The movie gave me a new respect for Abraham Lincoln. Go see it. The other movie we saw was Skyfall. You know: Bond, James Bond. I always enjoy Bond movies. I'm not crazy about all the shooting and chasing and oh-my-goodness-this-scene-needs-to-over-so-I-can-breathe-again moments, but Bond movies are always good. (That movie experience would have been so much more pleasant if someone from the family sitting next to us hadn't got up and walked in front of us TWELVE times throughout the movie...!)

>>We had sometime to kill before one of those movies, so we wandered in the mall and enjoyed a snack of ice cream. We had just eaten supper, but isn't there always room for ice cream? Especially with a name like:

Yum! Yum!

>>Hubby and I are on the lookout for a new artificial Christmas tree. We'd like one with LED lights and on that doesn't look obviously fake. We are weary of stringing the lights and then not having half of them light up. (And by we I mean hubby, cuz he does all that work.) We looked at a few, but there just doesn't seem to be many pre-lit LED trees, or maybe we don't know where to look. So it's looking like we'll drag out the old one and string up those lights again and hope for the best. Oh, and I am over having a real tree. I love the smell and I love the memories we have of going to a Christmas tree farm with the kids and picking out our favorite, but the falling needles and the watering and the fear of it bursting into flames isn't enough to make me want to continue getting real ones. I bet I could find a scented candle to bring in the fresh Christmas tree smell.

>>We just love being in a big city where we can choose from so many restaurants. Sometimes we even get a smidge overwhelmed with all the choices. Sometimes we try new places, sometimes we go for old favorites.

>>Sunday we were able to meet some dear friends for lunch. Always good to reconnect with them. We met in a place that had a large variety of ethnic foods. I enjoyed some yummy and just-right-spicy Pad Thai.

>>Hubby and I picked out some new drinking glasses at Target. Somehow in the last two years we have managed to break five glasses. (And we don't even have any kids at home doing the dishes we can blame it on!)

>>I am thankful for a wonderful weekend with my sweetheart. He's just a blast to be with.

(Wait, November is over....I don't need to end with the whole "I'm thankful" thing!)
(But it's still a good thing to focus on being thankful!)

Month of Thankfulness - Day 3

I liked this Saturday.

I didn't sleep much last night, but somehow managed to not be a total grump all day.

Hubby and I started our day out running errands. We went to a sale that was going on where he works. They were selling things that his company makes in other facilities. We could cram all we wanted into 2 bags. Pretty sweet deal. (I don't really want to disclose the name of the company for privacy reasons. You understand, I'm sure.) We found a bunch of stuff that our son had asked for and even more stuff to give to Hubby's cousin who runs a Bible camp. After hauling our almost overstuffed bags to the car we stopped at a couple of other stores and then had a lunch date.

If you are a regular to this here blog, you have heard me complain write about living in a very small town. There are not very many good restaurants here. We have narrowed it down to two sit-down restaurants we both like and one fast-food we can tolerate. We hit one of those sit-down places for lunch today and the restaurant had a new menu and therefore we were able to choose some new-to-us items that turned out to be very yummy despite the piece of paper I found in my wrap. (Whew! That was a doozey of a run-on sentence!) Yes, there was a piece of paper in my wrap. You know the pieces of paper that separates slices of cheese? Yep. The cook forgot to take that out. Thankfully I didn't eat any of it. The wrap was made with Naan bread and was difficult to pick up to eat, so I tackled it with a fork and knife. That's how I discovered the paper. I found it kind of funny. The waiter apologized and offered to bring me a new wrap. I declined. I figured the paper was food-safe to begin with so no big deal.

We spent the afternoon watching football (not me) and looking through a bunch of catalogs (me) that had come in the mail throughout the week. I was trying to get inspiration for a new look for our Christmas tree. After our kids were married and took the ornaments that had been given to them over the years, I realized how bare our tree was left. But for the last two or three Christmases I haven't done anything about it. Maybe I should just look at ornaments in stores and in catalogs and buy what appeals to me. I kind of prefer an eclectic look, so that may just be the trick. I keep thinking I'll see a whole tree decorated somewhere and have a Eureka! moment. Hasn't happened, so maybe this other approach will work. (Maybe I should talk this over with Hubby.)

Late in the afternoon we drove to an even smaller town about 20 miles away that actually has a movie theater (this town doesn't have a movie theater) that only shows movies on the weekends but still it's a movie theater and they happened to be showing a movie we've been wanting to see. (Yay! Another run-on sentence!) (I'm sure my journalist son is cringing.) On our way to the theater I realized I made a grave mistake. See, across the street from the movie theater is a quilt shop. I should have allowed enough time to so some actual shopping there. Phooey.

Anyway... the movie...

We saw Trouble With The Curve with Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams and Justin Timberlake. We both really enjoyed the movie.


I am thankful for...
...a wonderful day of hanging out with my hubby
...a good haul at the work-sight bag sale
...catalogs
...an extra hour of sleep tonight

Finally -- Christmas!!

We finally celebrated Christmas with our kids on December 31st. Or as I like to call it: 

Happy New Christmas Merry Year's Eve Day

Creative, huh?

We all invaded Caleb and Amanda's for the day's festivities. I think this puppy was anxious to get the festivities going: 

Did he know that Caleb & Amanda got him a box of treats?

Sorry it's a bit blurry, I think the puppy was too excited to pose.

Maybe he was wanting to play with the wrapping paper:

 We didn't waste a lot of time getting into the gift exchange. I just love giving gifts to my family. I love thinking of what would make them happy and I just love the anticipation of it all.

Amanda fixed us an incredibly delicious meal. The stuffed pork was so very yummy!

My sweet family. (Thanks for the goofy face, Zach.)

This was the first year we got to see the kids' Christmas trees. There were a lot of ornaments I recognized because they had hung on our tree for so many years. There was only one that tugged at my heartstrings. It was given to us for Caleb's very first Christmas. I've always loved this little bear.

I just had to document this nativity scene that Caleb made entirely out of pipe cleaners a couple of years ago. He's so silly. :)

 

Did you notice that quilt Megan was holding a few pictures back? I made her a quilt from a bunch of her old t-shirts. A few years ago I made one for Caleb too. I made sure to get a photo of them with both of their quilts. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. (Now I'm collecting t-shirts for my hubby and me and hope to make a combo one someday.)

After the Christmas celebration, we kicked into New Year's mode. We watched a couple of movies, snacked, played some games and watched Cold Play on TV and watched the ball drop in Time Square. All in all a great Happy New Christmas Merry Year's Eve Day. 

At the end of the night, we were all worn out.

(I'm back-dating my last two posts this year, because I want it all to conclude nicely and come out even. I'm just a little OCD about those kinds of things.)