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      Wednesday, December 28, 2005


otherstuff
01:57 PM - 12/28/2005

The topic: Christmas

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The week of Christmas I spent hours in the kitchen making cookies.  Lots and lots of cookies.  Snickerdoodles, two kinds of peanut butter cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, milk chocolate chip cookies with chopped walnuts, semi-sweet chocolate cookies, milk chocolate chip with Santa chips cookies and some fudge.  Lots of cookies.

I gave some to the trashman, the mailman, a friend of my mom’s, a ton to the vet’s office and to my mother-in-law. 

Brian was kind of disappointed that all that were left after I had packaged them were snickerdoodles.  Oh, well.  I guess I misunderstood him when he complained about all of the chocolate chip cookies being too sweet.  *sigh*

Anyway, when we moved into our house, Brian brought this old Atari console with him.  He said the game didn’t work.  Earlier this year, I tried to fix it, but wasn’t able to.  For Christmas, I found a retro Atari game, with forty games on it. Games that looked just like the old Atari system.  I bought it, wrapped it and put it under all of my mom’s presents that I stacked in a box for easy carrying. 

He didn’t like it.  On the way home he said “I can’t believe you bought that.  I can’t believe you don’t know I hate games like that”.  Huh?  If you hated it so much, why didn’t you just throw out your old broken console instead of bringing it to our house?  I told him it was the thought that counted, he could consider my feelings hurt and as a matter of fact, I was ready to cry.  He said he was sorry.

Anyway, I’ve been collecting stuff for my mom all year long.  I got her (and my mother-in-law) these really nice socks they sell at CostCo, they come three to a pack and they’re called “the world’s softest socks”.  They aren’t only soft, they’re very, very warm.  When we were up at Disneyland last week, we picked up assorted chocolates for both of them.  For my mom, I got a singing leprechan for St. Pat’s day, a clock that has what day of the week it is on it, as well as the time (I can’t count the times she’s asked me “what day is it?”).  I bought her a sweater that has kitties embroidered on it.  And a six pack of Spam meat.  And a gift card for Wal-Mart.  Her kitty cats got four flavors of Greenies cat treats, some shiny mousies and an electric cat bed.

She was just tickled. She said it was the best Christmas she’s ever had, she didn’t think she’d ever gotten that much stuff (I don’t believe that, my dad was a great gift giver).  She’s been showing off stuff to her friends since. 

My mother-in-law didn’t get her gifts until this morning.  I wish it could have been sooner, but since Brian’s brother and wife live at my mother-in-law’s house now (well, they’ve got their own home elsewhere, but moved in with Brian’s mom until they get their rental remodel finished since he needs to be up here to work on it) and my sister-in-law absolutely hates my guts (don’t think that’s gonna change any time soon), I won’t go over there.  Just too much tension and too hard on everyone’s nerves.

She called here this morning thanking me for the cookies and the socks.  And she said the card we gave her brought her to tears, it touched her so. Then she told me how she helps the neighbor ladies out by bringing out their trash and bringing it back in. She was going over to sweep the leaves off of one of their driveways after we finished our conversation.  Her neighbors are 93 and 95.  My mother-in-law is eighty.  I wonder if she’ll ever be able to have her own life, to be able to live for herself.  She had it for a while after my father-in-law died and her youngest grandson would go back to live with his mom.  I know she really enjoyed being able to just sit there and read a book and not have to worry about cooking dinner or doing laundry.  I hope she does get a chance to rest before she dies.

I also got a call from my mom’s friend who I sent a tin of cookies.  I gave her cookies last year, the first time I started doing this.  And she told me this morning that every Christmas, her mom made cookies for her.  And that her mom had died early in December 2004.  She said she missed her mom and missed her mom’s cookies. And when she got them from me, it was a complete surprise and it brightened up her holidays.  That was nice to know.  I gave them to her because I felt sorry for her because she’s all alone. 

So, my Christmas is done now. And this New Year’s eve will be our twentieth anniversary.  Hard to believe.



We just celebrated our 30th on the 27th - uh, really feel old now. Shouldn’t your sister-in-law be doing the cooking and laundry for mom? I mean, if your living there you should be doing your share, right? My daughter moved back in with us when she graduated from college and I miss the great “service”, she did laundry, washed dishes, vacuumed. She didn’t cook because, well, she’s not that good a cook. Hmm, wonder if she and my son-in-law would like to move in with us?

Posted by Donna @ Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 8:45:07 PM

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lisaviolet is seventy something, married with no kids, takes care of lots of cats, likes taking photographs, loves Southern California weather and spends altogether too much time avoiding her responsibilities.

In her spare time, she makes pretty things to sell in her store.

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