Friday Family Photo

This is for the cousins.


Our son-in-law was sick on Christmas Eve, so he didn't get in the photo. My son still hasn't found the woman I blogged about two years ago, although there was one who was pretty close (except she wasn't a Christian). Sigh.

Today's 10 Tasks

1) Return 3 volumes to the OSU library on Ackerman Rd. DO NOT STOP TO BROWSE!!!

2) Pick up the dry cleaning.

3) Make dessert to take to Indiana.

4) Walk at least a mile. It's NOT cold.

5) Read my health care plan.

6) Open up the box with the new computer and read the instructions.

7) Clean my desk top.

8) Let everyone know the Monday-Tuesday schedule and check supplies for dinner.

9) Type VAM minutes.

10)Go out for dinner with friends and swap Ireland stories (they've been there many times).

We've finished the Christmas cards!

This year my computer failed the day after the night I printed out a draft of the letter and a list of the labels. So we had to hand write the cards, and run the letter through the photocopier looking a bit squiqqly, but they are done earlier than most years. Is that the unintended consequences of technology--you tend to leave it all to the last moment because you've saved a bit of time on the front end? My husband wrote some and I wrote some, and I think some of you who were supposed to get personal notes didn't if your card was addressed by him. He paints; I write.

I suppose the day will come when no one sends cards--sort of like calling cards in days of the early 20th century. My daughter and nieces still send cards, but now most of them are 40 or over and they aren't the young generation anymore, except in my mind. Do 25 year olds send Christmas cards? But I love getting the cards and photocopied letters--all the trips, the theater, the opera, the hikes and picnics, the photographs of oodles of grandbabies, and now great-grands. And of course, at my age, many of the letters contain news of terrible losses and illnesses, or sadly come with only one name when for years there were two.

As I addressed a card to a first cousin once removed (daughter of an Illinois first cousin) who lives here in Columbus on the far east side I was reminded again that I've only seen her once, in 1993 at a family reunion. I last saw her parents at my mother's funeral in 2000. I've watched her kids grow up on Christmas cards, and learn about her brothers and sisters and their children through her once a year notes. Some years I hear from her parents, some I don't.

Ready for Christmas

My son-in-law and his father decorated the house and yard, and my daughter got out the creche and the Christmas dishes--and even managed to slip out for a little "black Friday" shopping. Then we enjoyed an evening of football and left overs. Lenox is retiring this pattern of the crèche, China Jewels, so I asked if I could buy a small item (the hen and rooster are about $30--within my price range), but she said if it wasn't in the original story, she wasn't collecting it.






The silver tea/coffee set in her cabinet was our wedding gift (1960), but it spent a lot of time in a box. Looks much nicer at her house.