The Christmas Spirit

Here I’m really probably should be called an atheist but Christmas is my favorite time of year. I’ve believed for years that in this season of giving we are Santa.

Holiday lights make the dark evenings so much brighter although I’m not a fan of over decorations either. Poinsettias decorate our porch and entry. We have put up color lights around the roof edge. Inside our great room we have a strand of color lights around the French doors and white lights around the ceiling. A friend gave us a small decorated tree as a gift for our party.

So this year it is fun because I’m making the gifts for our siblings as I did for our friends. Because Dale’s family all live in other areas; Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and one a couple of hours north of us we do not see them and must ship our gifts. We cannot include wine as it is a felony to ship. For Dale’s family I’m making each a tote bag from organic colorgrown cotton, a travel size pillow using 100% silk outside filled with organic buckwheat hulls and lavender buds. The present will also include a calendar using my favorite photos. These presents are things I’ve loved making.

We do see my brothers at our annual Christmas Eve gathering. I’ll make them a tote bag but it will include a bottle of wine, some of our favorite cheese and one of my calendars.

Last year was a bad year as I spent all extra money on trying to get the cookie business going so we did not give out any presents, even to grandkids. This year we are able to give each grandkid a present as well as kids. We will even have the Christmas stockings hung on the chimney with care filled with goodies. So while we celebrate Christmas with store bought stuff we will also make the holidays special with those items that were bought or made from the heart.

The December Octoberfest

So we had our party and it was a success!

Two granddaughters wanted to earn money so they came on Friday night and we started cleaning up the house. We ended up just stacking things in the garage just to get all of the ongoing projects out of the house. We set up the 2 bedrooms for guests to stay over, we knew our friend from Pasadena would stay and wanted to be ready for anyone else.

By 3 pm I had to start cooking and made: Hot German Potato Salad, Goulash, Warm Red Cabbage Salad, Choucroute Garnie, and Chicken Paprika. When I’ve visited my friends in Germany we have eaten lots of meat; my friend Dieter will say that meat is a vegetable. Knowing this I wanted good hardy meat dishes made with lots of Paprika. I’ve made all of these dishes before except for the Chicken but it sounded good and flavorful so there it was.

I’d mapped out the work time to prepare the meal so by the time everyone arrived food was about ready, yum!

We’d invited our oldest friends from the Annual days plus newer friends but only our oldest friends attended this time. It really didn’t matter, we had such a good time visiting with our old friends. These are our closest friends but we only see some when we have our parties, and others 2 or 3 times a year. When we do get together we have lots to talk about.

This year was fun because our party was held just before Christmas we gave out a Christmas gift to each friend as they left our house. I’d made several tote bags out of organic colorgrown cotton and gave these to the very closest friends. My granddaughter took a Trader Joe’s paper sack and inside put some tissue. For those receiving the tote she wrapped and put into the tote a bottle of Navarro Wine and a calendar then put the tote into the sack closing it with a wire twisty. For the other friends she put a bottle of wine and a calendar in the bag.

We did receive enough food to fill 2 boxes for Optimal Hospice plus bed linens from neighbors and more bags of food from them as well. Optimal Hospice was so happy to receive everything so it was successful night.