A Lull

Unbelievable as it may seem, it's Christmas Eve, actually - my favorite part of the Christmas holidays, and I have had a little catnap, and found time to sit here at my computer and compose a message to send out.

NeeNee, Brenan and Noi are watching a movie, Greg's napping on the floor, and Paul's on the other computer. I've done a load of wash, folded it. Noi's got one in the machine right now.

There's been the usual mishaps related to gifts. . .

One: I lost (misplaced) twosmallinexpensive gifts for the children's gift exchange. So I set out at 7:30 this morning to Toys R Us to replace them. I know that as soon as we relocate our gifts to under the tree in the living room, we'll find them. My plan is to add them to the Kids Stuff to be used when we have grandchildren visiting. (We have two small trees - one on our dining room buffet, and the other on our half-wall near the living room entrance.)We have a wintry glass-lit village on top of our library-bookcase. Our gifts will go down there.

Two: I didn't run out of paper, ribbons, scotch tape or scissors. I ran out of labels. So my next stop was at Walmart's to get that. Their Christmas wrapping stations were very disorderly. To put it mildly. I forgot my list so I came home without coffee - a very drastic problem - so my Dear One went back and got that, plus some things he needed himself. So it wasn't a complete waste of his time.

This was a neat time to Christmas Shop - hardly anyone around, and so no lines. I stopped at Sam's Club and they normally won't allow anyone near their store who doesn't have a business membership before 10:00. It was 8- and everyone was entering. There, too, it wasn't crowded and everyone entered and exited at the same door. Unusual.

I was home by 10:00 and found that three other grandchildren had joined NeeNee and Brenan - Ida, Charlie and Lee. Their mom and dad were working this morning. Yesterday Ida and Lee joined us when Sharon needed to go Christmas shopping.

We've found that our bills are not being forwarded from Florida. Jil sent me a list of all the ones that were down there. Not good. We requested he send them priority mail. We hate to have late bills! And with the Christmas mail delivery and the postmen being overwhelmed, I do hope he remembered to send it out so we can get it asap. It is hoped he has.

There's a little snow on the ground. What you would call a dusting. Not enough to sled ride, but enough to kinda call it a White Christmas.

We're headed to Sharon and Dave's tonight for a finger-food dinner. We're bringing sticky rice and chicken satays. I supplied the chicken. Noi will supply the know-how. After that we're going to their church for the Christmas Eve service.

Did you know that Santa's journey can be tracked on the computer through Norad? Look it up on Google: Tracking Santa. Ida and I looked it up, and he had been on the Great Wall of China and when I last looked, he was near Australia. Neat. Wherever he's been on the map they put a "present" icon.

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Time for a cup of coffee. Thank you, Paul.

That's all the news for now. How're things goin' in your neck o' the woods?