December 2008 Archives

2008 is on it's last leg. Steve is out picking up our New Year's Eve date, Delaney Marie!  She has been with us the past two years so it seems to have become a tradition.  Ella visited us yesterday and we made one last batch of Christmas cookies which she had fun putting sprinkles of all kinds on top of.  Taylor reports that Matthew and Davie will be visiting them for some video gaming tonight so I sent along a freshly made supply of snack mix for them to munch on.

We have so many blessings to count in our lives and we wish everyone the same for the coming year!

Even after nearly 30 years of living here in Indiana,it still catches me by surprise when I look out the window at this time of year and still see the grass a faint shade of green.  While I miss the look of snow on the ground I do not miss the "mess" of it.  The fun of snow, frozen lakes and bundling up is an experience that brings back many happy memories of beautiful Minnesota.  When the weather does turn more wintry here I will no doubt enjoy it again because it never overstays it's welcome around these parts!

Then there was the time that baby Caitlin (my sister and husband adopted daughter) was due to arrive from Korea on Christmas Eve 1983. The plane got delayed in Seattle and was rescheduled to arrive on Christmas Day instead. That was a true blessing, because on the 23rd and 24th was one whopper blizzard in Minnesota and no one was going anywhere, much less the 2 hour trip to the airport in the cities. My sister and husband were actually snowed in at their neighbor's farm, not being able to continue driving even the 1/4 mile ahead to their place, so that's where they spent Christmas Eve!! The next day the roads were plowed just enough to drive to the airport (I have pictures of the snowdrifts at the sides of the road, twice as high as a car) and we all (Judi and Gene, my folks, my younger sister and husband, my brother & wife and 2 little boys, and Steve and I and boys) ended up going! We got there just in time for the plane and I will never forget it - we were at the gate but the big windows were so frosted over and it was still so swirling with snow that we couldn't see a thing until the host mother came literally running up the entry way from the plane, straight toward Judi and Gene and in one swift motion it seemed like she thrust Caitlin into their arms! It was such a neat Christmas story (other babies arrived on that flight too) that there was a news team covering it and we were all on the 6 o'clock news Christmas night. So, it was a very, very memorable Christmas. Oh, I remember one more thing. It was soooo cold yet (way below zero) that when we went to get our car in the airport parking garage it wouldn't start and we had to beg a jump from the security guys!! The next day on the 26th we finally were all together at my folks, and celebrated the birth of Christ, along with the long awaited arrival of baby Caitlin. Sweet, sweet memory.

Over at Conversation Club Chatter we have been sharing stories about our Christmas or Hanukkah present and past.  Brings back some great memories...

Christmas time travel, how well I remember the adventures we had in our Minnesota trips through the years. I cringe at the thought of one especially dangerous drive in about 1985 (I'd have to check diaries to be exact). We started out from Indianapolis around 6:30 am during a sleet and ice storm with the temp right at 32 degrees - all the way to Lafayette we saw semis and cars in the ditches. This was before the Interstate 39 was built, so we always drove through Chicago - by the time we hit there it was snowing and the temps were dropping with each mile northward. By the time we finally pulled into my folks driveway around 10 pm that night it was 35 degrees below zero with a windchill of around 50 below. For the next 3 days, no one's car would start - even with engine block heaters and batteries removed and brought inside to warm up. The next day was Christmas and it had heated up to around 10 degrees so that the cousins could all finally get out of the house and go sledding!! Then, to add insult to injury, the day we left New Ulm there was a huge blizzard that we drove in till we got near to Madison, not quite the half way point. We were just about ready to stop at a motel but then decided to push on and finally got home after 16 hours in the car. To write about it now seems like we were reallly cuckoo, but at the time it was just another Christmas trip! And back then we had a regular rear wheel drive car.

Oh, I could tell oodles more stories of those Minnesota trips.

It is a pretty day - pretty to look out at that is! But the temperature is anything but...  Yesteday it only got to about 6 degrees and today is just a bit better.  Steve and I were out running errands this afternoon, and shivering our way in and out of the stores and car.  When we lived in the frozen North, we dressed for the weather and consequently the cold wasn't so keenly felt.  Steve was remembering that from Thanksgiving until the end of March he routinely wore long underwear and lots of layered clothing. Also stocking hats, warm gloves and boots were the norm when heading out the door. Here it seems like we get by with the least amount of winter wear possible.  At Target today I saw a lady with just a sweat jacket on.  What was she thinking?  Then I looked a little closer at myself, nothing on my head, thin stretch gloves on my hands and no scarf around my neck.  Guilty!!!

About as deep into Christmas preparations as I will get this year ~ finally got the cards done and sent off yesterday, packages last week, wrapping started, baking continuing and soon done with the annual reading of Dicken's "A Christmas Carol".  Monday morning I was invited to a little Christmas breakfast out at Shelbe's for our preschool "Survivor's Club".  Tomorrow morning my devotions group will meet at Gloria's also for a breakfast.  I am bringing Cream Cheese Coffee Cake (in the oven right now) and the rest will add other goodies.   We'll share poems or prayers for our devotion time.  Then comes the girl's program at church on the 24th followed by our family gathering on the 25th.

I have been thinking that all of these activities are fun and worthwhile and bring much joy.  But,  there will never, ever, ever be anything at all in our adult lives to equal the excitement felt when going to bed on Christmas Eve, knowing that the next morning will be the best day in the whole world....

Fudge = 3 batches

Snack mix = 3 batches

Ready to make batches 4,5 and 6 of snack mix (I do that much at a time) and then make batch 4 of fudge.

Good thing Christmas comes but once a year...

This...from Writer's Almanac for today....

 

It's the birthday of the poet Emily Dickinson born in Amherst, Massachusetts (1830). She spent most of her adult life in her corner bedroom in her father's house. The room contained a writing table, a dresser, a Franklin stove, a clock, a ruby decanter, and pictures on the wall of three writers: George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Thomas Carlyle.

She wrote on scraps of paper and old grocery lists, compiled her poetry and tucked it away neatly in her desk drawer. She began collecting her handwritten poems into packets of folded paper, stitching the spines herself. She eventually wrote more than 1,700 poems. In the year 1862 alone, she wrote 366 poems -- about one per day.

Emily Dickinson said, "To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else."

Around our house, there is one sure sign that it is getting close to Christmas.  The smells of fudge and snack mix are in the air!!

Yesterday Delaney Marie and I celebrated our birthdays together - her young life launching ahead into the freshness of two-digit years and mine into the ripeness of 58 returns of the day!!  It was wonderful to wake up to a little bit of snow, which was one of the wishes on Delaney's birthday list.   The whole Hatfield bunch met at Bob Evan's for a fun meal, and then headed back here for some gifts and ice cream cake.  It was a lovely day.   And tonight, one more fete - Steve and I will go out to dinner, trying a new restaurant I think down on Meridian Street.  Happy Birthday all around!