Christmas and Afterwards

As usual, our Christmas was spread out over several days. Terri and Don came up from San Augustine and based themselves at the Hampton Inn in Liberty. They got here on a Saturday, and met a friend for dinner that evening. Sunday evening we met them and Derek and Kristen at a Mexican restaurant in Liberty. After dinner, we all went back to their motel room and exchanged gifts. Then we sat around and visited for a few hours. It was really fun.

Christmas day Wayne and I were awakened around six in the morning by Garret, calling from England. He said that since he always got us up early on Christmas morning, he thought he should call and make sure we were up. It was so good to hear his voice, even at that hour.

We stayed in bed a couple more hours after Garret's call, and then we got up and opened our gifts for each other. We had agreed we would each buy the thing we wanted the most, and not get each other anything. Of course, that didn't happen. I didn't get Wayne too much, but he got us a television and DVD player for the bedroom. The television we had in there had stopped working. Wayne was looking ahead to the time when this terrible emphysema keeps me mostly bed bound. He had a terrible program getting everything programed with our cable service, and still doesn't have it where we can play the premium channels. We can watch the other cable channels, though, and play DVDs. It is nice.

We didn't even put up a tree this year, or do any decorating. We had decided that we didn't want a big Christmas dinner, so we fixed a beef roast instead of a turkey. In fact, Wayne fixed our dinner, and I cleaned up afterwards.

The twenty-sixth was Garret's birthday, and I really missed him being home. It felt worse than Christmas without him, actually. But that afternoon we went to Kathy's house to give her kids their presents. That was a lot of fun, too. Kathy had made some delicious fudge, and she sent some of it home with me. Since Wayne tries to stay away from sugar, I didn't make any candy or cookies this year.

Terri and Don left Saturday to go back home, and Derek and Kristen went with them. The kids are going to fly home this weekend.

Terri called me while they were driving through Arkansas, and wanted to know how soon they would drive out of the snow. I checked the weather channel, both on television and online, as well as channel nine weather, and none of them showed snow in Arkansas, only rain. Terri said that it was coming down pretty hard, and they had seen several vehicles off the road. Of course I gave her a hard time about "imagining" the snow.

I can't believe how much snow we have had already this year. It has already snowed four or more times, and there is snow on the ground now. We must have gotten a couple of inches overnight. We have had a couple of spells of ice this winter, too. I like the snow, but can do without the ice.

Our New Year celebration is always very quiet. I don't know if we will even stay up until midnight this year. Gosh, we're getting old!