Merry Christmas From Our House to Yours

Christmas Eve 2024

On this Christmas Eve, I wish contentment, comfort, and coziness for all of you. Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, I hope the spirit of the holiday will give you some happy feelings and a chance to just be.

Fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas Eve 2023 - Love

"He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree."

- Roy L. Smith

A Lovely Christmas Day

Hello to all of you! I hope everyone who celebrated Christmas Day had a good one. Ours was lovely, and since we had no reason to go outside into the bitter cold, we just hunkered down and stayed cozy in the house.

I wanted to show you this decoration of ours. About ten years ago, my niece Liz and her husband Greg sent this to us for a Christmas gift. In theory, it's supposed to have a light inside and light up when the tree is turned on, but we've never gotten around to that. But we really love it, and every year, it is lovingly placed under the tree for all of our celebrations.

The kitties had a wonderful day, with their gifts and the boxes, wrapping, and ribbons from everyone's gifts. They got treats as well, and by late afternoon they were all passed out asleep. I'll share some of those pictures later, but suffice it to say that Santa treated them well, and clearly had them on the list of those who had been good all year.

The Tim and I are both back at work this week, which on the plus side is good because it means we have income, but on the minus side, I just think everyone should be able to have the week between Christmas and New Year's to enjoy. Sadly, I do not run the world. I mean, could we at least have been given Monday? Nope, not in this universe. We obviously both survived, but both reported a long boring day. 

Tomorrow morning I have an appt for a bone scan, bright and early. I'm hoping it goes as usual, so I can have plenty of time after to get to work. Usually it's not something that takes long, either wait time or for the actual appt, but you never know when will be the exception. At least tomorrow is my last day of work for the week, so my time is all my own after that. I'm looking forward to it.

I actually did a Christmas Eve cast-on this year. Late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, The Tim took a nap, so I decided to cast on a sock. I pulled out the Advent skein I bought from the Freckled Whimsy, and got started. I never have time to do a stripe-a-day during December leading to Christmas, because I'm busy with other stuff. But at least I have gotten these started while it's still Christmastime. 😊 Right now, I have the cuff and two stripes, but when I make a little bit more progress, I'll share a picture with all of you.

And that's the news from here. I hope you are enjoying a good week, regardless of any celebrations you may or may not observe. Take care, and I'll check in again soon.

Christmas Eve at Aunt Mary's

Here we are, at Christmas Eve, and the end of the Virtual Advent Tour sponsored by sprite.  She asked me if I would like to write the post for today, since I've done it for a couple of years, and I'm more than pleased to do it.

Until I was about 6 years old, we lived out of town, away from the rest of our extended family.  My parents always had plenty of friends, so it wasn't like we were never around other people, but it was quite a shock to me when we moved back to the town where both of my parents had grown up, and all of a sudden I had tons of relatives who knew all about me, and I was just learning about their existence!

My father was part of a family that had four children: himself, his sisters Mary Agnes and Helen, and his youngest brother John.  When he was about 13, his father was killed by a train, and the kids were split up to live with relatives - my dad and my Aunt Mary went to live with one set of grandparents, and Aunt Helen and Uncle John went to live with their mother and her parents.  From what I was able to gather, they never spent a whole lot of time together as a family after that, and my father and my Aunt Mary were very close to each other as a result.

Aunt Mary married a wonderful guy from a really large Polish family, and they had four sons - the three older boys were in between the ages of my sisters and me, and the youngest boy was two years younger than I am.  Aunt Mary's birthday was Christmas Eve, and of course, that was when her husband Uncle Eddie's family had their big Christmas celebration.  So from the time I was pretty young, we always went to their house on Christmas Eve.

And oh, was it something!  Uncle Eddie's family would be there, and they were such a fun group of people - they loved singing, dancing, and just laughing together.  They treated us like family as well, and walking into Aunt Mary's house on Christmas Eve was like walking into a family reunion of people who had longed to see you for years (even though it was always just a year since we'd last seen them).  

And the food - homemade by Uncle Eddie, all of the pierogies, cabbage rolls, breads, and sweets, etc. that you could imagine.  Walking into the house, the smells alone made your mouth water, and even if you had just eaten dinner an hour ago, Uncle Eddie made you a plate, and no matter how full you were, you devoured every bite and it tasted better than anything you could ever remember eating!

But wait - then there was birthday cake!  Always a bakery cake (I don't think Uncle Eddie ever tried to make a cake for her, and the boys were typical boys of the time and likely couldn't even boil water).  Everyone - and there were usually at least about 40 people crammed into their small kitchen around the table - would sing "Happy Birthday," and we'd all have some cake.  Then everyone would move into the living room, admire their tree, and Aunt Mary would have small gifts for each person.

At the time, I thought this was just the best - it was *her* birthday, and we were the ones who received gifts!  It was never anything big, but it was a package to unwrap and take home, and frankly that was as exciting as anything else.  

I think of Aunt Mary and her family every Christmas Eve, and especially remember that it's her birthday.  She and Uncle Eddie both passed away years ago.  We never really kept in touch with our cousins, nor did they make an effort on their part.  When I was in college, I heard through a mutual acquaintance that the eldest had moved somewhere in the South to start over after kicking a drug habit; the next kid was in prison for drug dealing and theft; the third son had married, had a couple of kids and moved to Utah once he came out of rehab for alcoholism; and the youngest was married and working in the coal mine.  I am sorry to say that at this point, I know nothing about any of them, or even if they are still alive, and that's really too bad, because I know that would make my Aunt Mary sad to know.

But even now, my sisters and I still talk about "Christmas Eve at Aunt Mary's" and how much fun it was, and who would always be there, the food, the singing, the polkas, and the warm embrace of love to anyone and everyone who walked through the door.  They were like the rest of the family - hardly any money, making it through things as well as they could, and wanting the best for their kids.  Outsiders looking in probably felt sorry for them, since they never had a nice house, or a fancy car, and because their kids had so many troubles as they got older.

But Christmas Eve at Aunt Mary's was the highlight of the year.  And now I realize that it was because of the feeling of family and belonging, and unconditional love just because you existed.  Not the gifts, not the food, but the people, the excitement and huge greetings you received when you opened the door and crossed the threshold.  I've never experienced anything like it since, and that could be just my imagination and my memory telling me so, but I'm not convinced that is the case.

My wish for all of us this Christmas Eve is that we all have at least one small part of this feeling for the holiday.  Whether you are with the family of origin, or the family you have created; with your friends, or your roommates, or even on your own with some furry or other pet companions.  I hope that you will have one second of the feeling of being loved, being special, being welcome.  Christmas should be that as much as anything else.

Merry Christmas to you and yours.

And Happy Birthday, Aunt Mary.

Christmas Eve 2019

"May you never be too grown up to search the skies on Christmas Eve"

... no matter who or what you hope to see.

Have a lovely Christmas Eve, and blessings to you and yours from everyone at our house.

It's All About Belief

Here we are once again, having reached Christmas Eve, a day of anticipation and excitement.  For some, it's a bittersweet time because someone is missing, or because things have changed now that they are adults.  For others, it's a really busy day, for instance if you are hosting the Feast of the Seven Fishes, or if you have toys to put together out of sight of curious minds, or if you just thought about buying some gifts.

Today it is my turn again to write a post for sprite's Virtual Advent Tour 2018.

And I want to tell you about believing, because the Christmas season is as much about belief as it is about anything else.  I'm not necessarily even talking about religious belief, though Christmas is at its core a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.  There are plenty of people in the world who don't believe in Him, or the Christmas story.  I'm also not talking only about Santa Claus, the beloved character who brings gift and fills stockings and is one of the primary symbols of Christmas. 

What I would like to talk about is belief in something or someone you cannot see, or have never met.  For instance, I never met any of my grandparents, and have only seen one or two photos of any of them.  Yet, I believe they existed, not just because my parents existed, but because of all of the stories they told me about them.  I believe the Christmas story, not just because it is the tradition of my childhood, but because to me it seems very real and very meaningful.  I don't mind telling you that Christmas Eve and the retelling of the birth of Christ make me very emotional, because it seems like such a human story, and because, well, babies are in fact born.

I also believe in Santa Claus, for real.  OK, I know that any gifts I receive are from friends and family, and that I can even use the gift receipt to return or exchange them without having to book passage to the North Pole.  But you will never, ever be able to convince me that Santa and his reindeer do not exist.  Because I have no reason to think otherwise.  If Santa does not exist, why does Christmas seem like such a fun time of year?  When I was a kid, we had a few Christmases where Santa was not able to leave gifts, but he did leave a few things in our stockings, and that was as exciting as a thousand packages.  I know so many people who don't like this time of year, and/or think it's too commercial, or get sick of hearing Christmas music.  If Santa does not exist, why is it that none of their grumpiness or irritation rub off on me, a person who is very easily grumpy or irritated?  For some, this is a hard time of year because they are having troubles or have lost someone they loved.  Why would those intense feelings happen if they were not human and capable of feeling both love and loss?

I guess for me it boils down to my belief that Christmastime is about the belief in and of love.  It's a celebration - much more than Valentine's Day - of the fact that love exists, it remains, and that even if we can't see it as a physical item, we believe it's there.  If you don't love or have never loved anyone or anything, there is nothing to celebrate, nothing to enjoy, nothing to miss when it is gone.  I think most people believe in love - not necessarily the romantic kind, as there are so many other types.  And to love, be loved, and believe in love is always better than the alternative, if you ask me.

Jesus, Santa, gifts, carols - everything we associate with Christmastime - are all about the belief in love.  And love is belief more than anything else.  And belief gives us so much that makes us human. 

I hope this Christmas Eve is one of belief, hope, and joy for you and your family.  May the very best of the season be what you experience, and may you feel love above all else.  Always be looking up.

And if you are like me, I hope you are listening for, and that you hear sleigh bells during the night.  :-)

Scenes of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Oh what a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we had!  Of course, we are still celebrating, but I thought I'd share some photos I took while we were enjoying things.

First of all - The Tim had to work on Christmas Eve, which was not in and of itself weird, since while he was at the bookstore, that was always the case.  However, in past years, he worked until the store closed at 7 p.m., and would usually get home and we would eat dinner by 8 p.m.  Not a lot of evening left after that, which was always fine, but not as good as this year by a lot!  This year he worked until 3 in the afternoon, and was home by 3:30 - it was like we had the whole day together, and that was THE BEST.

Christmas Eve while we were setting the table, etc. for dinner, Milo the Koodle sat on the chair across from the tree the entire time, and later into the evening.  We decided he was either a) hoping to catch Santa visiting, or, b) making sure Santa saw what a good boy he is (ahem). 

(He had been nervous all day (and is still recovering) from an event earlier in the day, so this is as much as we saw him.  That's a story for another post.)

We were amused at our Surprise Dinner Guest:

Who could it be???

Even though we didn't do as much decorating as usual this year due to one of The Tim's projects, our tree still looks great.

And yes, there are two Rudolph's under the tree.  The one on the right lights up and is supposed to be outside, but The Tim doesn't "want the weather to ruin him," so he stays inside ...

Jack was the first kitty to come downstairs on Christmas morning, and was quite pleased to see that Santa had in fact visited our house!

Stockings and packages were opened, toys were played with, treats were eaten, and general hilarity was the tone of the day.

The Tim put this ribbon/garland/whatever on Pip - when he was busy with something else, it was fine, but when he'd remember he was wearing it, he'd go nuts!  We took it off after a few minutes after taking this picture.

A few years ago, a friend sent our cats at that time a catnip-filled Newt Gingrich toy, and they really hated that sucker - they would attack it and tear at it, and it was hilarious.  This year, that same friend sent a catnip-stuffed version of our current Eejit in Chief, and he got a LOT of attacks, etc.  Which pleased us immensely.

Good boy, Jack.  Resist.

Scenes from Christmastime 2016

Christmas Eve 2014

Oh lay aside

each earthly thing,

And with thy heart 

as offering

Come worship now

the Infant King -

'Tis love that's born tonight.

Happy Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to you and yours.  May you always remember that just being here is the best part.