Our Christmas Holiday

I have been remiss from writing in my journal. Since we are on a later Sunday schedule, I hope to do better. I also want to start writing my life’s story/history. We had a wonderful Christmas. My MIL’s neighbors went to spend Christmas with family and their family lives out highway 39 and so they go right past K’s house. So they dropped Mom off there Thursday evening. We arrived down there Christmas Eve Day just after 1:00 pm. S and J & children came and B, W and O were there too. Kmade prime rib…doing some of it in the oven and part of it outside on the grill. It was very good. He has done it every year and it gets better every year, since he found out that not everybody has clam chowder for Christmas Eve dinner. After wards, we had a short program with M (5 years old) passing out the bags with a nativity scene character in it and a strip to be read by that person. (Next year she will be able to read some of them.) Then we would sing a Christmas Carol. S, B and K all took turns playing the piano. I played He Sent His Son for the opening song and Let There Be Peace On Earth for the closing song. So we all did our share.

The next day J brought his lap top with the scenes he shot as his children were opening their gifts. He also shot scenes of the program the night before. While we were doing the closing song, K was holding 2½ year old P and they were playing with each others tongues and sticking them out at each other and trying to catch the other one’s tongue. It was hilarious. K came down to see what everyone was laughing about. She was appalled to see. She exclaimed, “I had no idea that we were being recorded!!” We had a lovely ham dinner on Christmas Day. Since J’s parents were down in Utah, they came back down late morning. B, W and O spent the night. K was there too. It was almost 8:00 before we got up. That was the latest we have ever slept. But then we can’t say we slept the whole time because O (she is 15 months old) woke us up twice with her crying. I’m not sure if it was a strange bed or what with her but…

We all went to Church the next day with K & K. They had very good meetings. At RS I noticed there was no one playing the piano so I volunteered my services. There hasn’t been too many years passed that I wouldn’t have dared do that because I was so out of practice. I’m thankful the Lord has blessed me with the opportunities to be in practice so I can do that. After the meetings, while I was putting my coat on a sister came up to me and told me that her sister was the one who usually played and they were out of town for Christmas. I tho’t she must have been so involved with getting ready for Christmas that she forgot to arrange for someone else to do it. When I told K about it, she stated that that was Mrs. P’s sister and she usually played for her. She hadn’t mentioned that when I was talking to her. It was later than five minutes to when I started playing so I guess the sister who usually did it was running late.

We left that afternoon to take Mom back to Grace. (She stated she really enjoyed being there. She just sat and watched quietly. Didn’t have a lot of interaction but she was glad to be there. We were also glad she didn’t have to spend Christmas alone.) We played Five Crowns, the three of us, (Karl complaining the whole time) and after we finished Mom said, “That was fun.” Karl rolled his eyes. We left the next morning after trying to clean the ugly hard water stains from Mom’s bathtub and toilet and having breakfast to head for Utah.

We arrived down at Mama’s a little after 3:00 pm. I had had a tooth pulled the Tuesday before and was running out of pain pills. Since K had gone to Smith’s to have the prescription filled I knew we could go to Smith’s down there and they could transfer the prescription. So I called M to see where a Smith’s in the area would be. I’m thankful he answers his cell at work. I had tried to call his home but it said that that wasn’t a working number. Thus calling M. I later learned that I had put in 501 instead of 801 as the area code. I was glad it hadn’t gone thro’.

We ended up staying with Mama three nights. We were going to stay with Kim one or two nights but Kimberly was soo sick and I didn’t want to get it besides no one wants company when they are feeling rotten. We did get to see K and the kids at C’s Eagle Court of Honor Wednesday evening; so we did get to see them, which was good. Monday evening we played Mormon Bridge. I still don’t know if I could remember the way to keep score. I guess the next time we play I will have to ask to keep score so Mama can guide me. My tho’t was “When she goes, no one will play again because no one will be able to remember how to keep score.” We watched Perry Mason before going to bed. I hadn’t seen that particular episode before, which is unusual.

I talked to C Tuesday morning to see if we could see them that evening. But R since he is bishop now spends his Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings at the church. I had a very nice visit with C but didn’t get to see R. We took Mama to Olive Garden Tuesday around 2:00 pm. We all had soup & salad. It was very good and we had such good service from our waitress. We really enjoyed ourselves there. We were even able to take home what we couldn’t finish which I didn’t know you could do under those circumstances. We had it later on for supper.

We left, all three of us, Wednesday afternoon, early, We exchanged gifts right after we got there. We had a lovely supper and then went to the Court of Honor. It was very nice. C had planned it well. He is the third Eagle Scout among our grandsons. M was one of the speakers. There were three plus the man conducting. I played the closing song and N led. There was a regular Idaho blizzard there that night. It took K more than an hour to go from his house to the church which usually would take 20 minutes. We were glad to see him but worried about him. We did notice on the was back to American Fork that the weather wasn’t as bad then as it had been going. The roads were slick but the wind and snow blowing wasn’t nearly so bad.

We were planning on leaving around 10:00 or so to go to M & T’s. . We had to wash the sheets and make the bed before we left (we didn’t have to but we wanted to do it so Mama wouldn’t have to). With that and packing the car and eating breakfast it was afternoon when we left to go to M’s. Both he and the children were disappointed that we didn’t get there earlier. I told him that I hoped he was smiling when he called and said he might as well have gone to work since we were getting there so late. T said he wasn’t.  We did have time for a game of Pinochle with C sitting in for M on the last hand. We girls won that one which was a surprise since the first hand M was dealt a full family and a double Pinochle which is very rare. And both together being dealt is even rarer. We played two other games of Pinochle before we left to come home Saturday.

New Year’s Eve T had a party. She invited 8-10 people but only three showed up. The little girls were allowed to stay up and watch and play games with them too. They were soo excited about it. M, T, K and I set up the card table in the living room and played Five Crowns and Pinochle while we were waiting for the new year to come in. We were able to go to bed a little after 12:30 am. We left to come home around 11:30. It was a very nice stay there.

I called my mother before we left and she said, “Altho’ we didn’t do anything stupendous, it was a very nice visit. I’m glad you were here.” I felt the same way. It was good to be able to just visit and be with her. It’s been quite a while since I’ve spent that much time with her.

We stopped in SLC and visited with B and D for about 1½ hours. It was good to see them. We hadn’t seen each other since April at Mama’s birthday party. She is recovering nicely from her knee surgery. She is having the other one done on the 19th of this month.

We got to K’s almost 5:00. She was the only one there. We stayed about an hour, loading up our Christmas stuff and visiting about our trip. We got home at 7:00 pm. We found everything just fine. Our neighbors had cleaned off our driveway so we didn’t have to do that. The ground was all covered with snow. Altho’ they didn’t get the storms up here that we got down in Utah. After checking things out, I got started on my bulletin. Since it was Fast Sunday, we didn’t have too many things to do. I waited until the next morning to run it off and fold it since we are now on the 11-2 schedule.