Getting in the Christmas spirit! The kids gifts are wrapped and sent out, and the holiday preparation has begun. The house is decorated, looks and smells like cozy winter, and the kids stockings and ornaments are
all hung waiting for Santa, ha ha. Hey, in my house, Santa still comes, you
might not believe, but I do and he hasn’t failed me yet.
I’m making pies for
Christmas and managed to finally perfect a scratch pie crust recipe over
Thanksgiving, thanks to my friend Steve who gave me a great tip. I got three
deer this hunting season – well actually, I got two and my neighbor gave me one
because he already had enough – so I made tons of jerky (which is already gone)
and tried my hand at sausage, which came out great. Will be making some of that
for Christmas as well. I even tried making breakfast sausage and it came out awesome
(if I don’t say so myself). It’s amazing what you can do with spices, who knew.
The Christmas cards with photos have been arriving each day.
My cousin Marty’s boy Evan is getting so big and super smart, and my cousin
Brady’s kids are so cute and a ton of fun to watch on Facebook. They live in DC
and got a bunch of snow a few weeks ago, so they got a nice taste of winter and
made their share of snowmen and forts. My friend who had a little girl and
named her Cecilia (same as my daughter) is getting big too and even has the
same big blue eyes as my baby girl. Just love watching all these kids grow,
including my own. Life is good.
Excited to talk to my nieces in a few days. My oldest niece Sydney
graduated high school and started college this year, can’t wait to hear how her first semester was.
Rachel has been doing great in school and traveling all over playing soccer. She should
be ready for volleyball soon, I’ll get an update in a few days. My god-daughter
Abby has completed basic training in the Army National Guard Reserves and is living down
south, not sure if I’ll get to see her for the holidays. Her sister Katie is busy
with school and working at Savoia Bakery preparing to be a pastry chef in
college.
My parents are hangin’ in and enjoying their retirement. Dad
is feeling pretty good despite going in for a routine stress test and ending up
with two heart stent surgeries. He’s feeling much better now that he’s had them
done though. He and my step mom have been busy with some charity work they do
for the Ocala Forest Children nearby their home in The Villages. I think my dad
works a lot in retirement, but it’s a good kind of work and he certainly seems
to be enjoying himself. My mom is doing good too. She didn’t stay here long
this summer because she and my step dad bought a new house, literally right
across the street from their old one, right before they left in the spring, so
she was late getting here and left early to take care of things down in
Florida. One of these years I’ll have to spend the holidays in Florida so I can
see them both for Christmas.
I’ll spend New Year’s with friends nearby as I have for the
last few years. They are friends that I snowmobile with and there is a whole
mess of kids in the group. I think I mentioned last year that they put on a “New
Year’s Spectacular” right after the ball drops that is so great – singing and
dancing and performing. Love it. Speaking of ball dropping, wonder if my
daughter knows about the Time Square Countdown app for her phone. It’s pretty
cool. You can keep track of the count down in NYC and even get live streaming
video. My daughter is crazy about NYC, pretty sure she’ll live there someday
when she gets a job on Broadway. Who knows, maybe both my kids will be there - my daughter on Broadway and my son playing for the NY Giants ;)
I’m sure my kids will be busy through the holidays as well,
despite the two weeks off of school, between play rehearsals and wrestling
tournaments and family time with their mom’s family they will be plenty busy.
Wishing them, and their friends and their mom’s family, a very Merry Christmas
and a Happy 2014. They too have a whole bunch of younger kids around to make
the holidays extra fun. Love and miss ya both very much and would love to see
you….just call or email, I’m here for you, always will be, with open arms and
an open heart. xox
