The sounds of Christmas

Tom loves Mormon Radio and all through December you can click onto 24 hour Christmas music. We have that music running in the background most every day. The computer times out after about a half hour, so we get periods of silence... until we wake it up again. It has really brought the Christmas spirit into our house. That, and having it all decorated early.

This week I worked on a paint can lid sealer technology. It's certainly lower tech than the nanodots, but also delightfully easy to understand. It's a one whack paint can sealer. I wanted them to call it "Thunk-n-done Sealer" but they went with the more pedantic "The Paint Can Sealer." Faster, better seal so the paint last longer, and the paint in the lip won't splash out on you.

Monday night Tom and I went to see the last of the Hunger Games movies. I think it had a better ending than the book- more resolution. But I didn't like the fact that all through the book she was a pawn for someone else. It was unsatisfying. I wonder, to what degree are we pawns of a "master game-maker."

Speaking of that. As we were driving in Branson this week, we passed a sign that said, "Feed the Sharks."  Tom said, "I thought we did that every time we paid taxes."

I had been thinking of visiting Mom in January. I saw cheap tickets ($268) and decided to go for it. So I called Mom and Cynthia and Susan to check on their lives and schedules. It took a day or so to get everything settled. Then tickets were nearly $400. Yikes. But I remembered the stock market. It goes up and down randomly. And airplane tickets do too. So I checked back and on Saturday they were down to $248!  So I grabbed them. Perhaps they'll drop to $199... but I won't know it. I've stopped checking.

Tuesday I made cranberry nut bread for my visiting teachees and for us. A loaf was still warm when I picked up one of my sort-of-active sisters and took her to the Relief Society Christmas dinner. We had a very special program about women in and around the birth of the Savior. We also witnessed again the miracle of the loaves and fishes as they expected maybe 35 and ended up with 55 sisters in attendance.

Wednesday we finished the Christmas cards and got them ready to go out. Tom had picked up a trailer load of logs from a church member who cleared the forest to build his house. The logs were 4-6 feet long and typically about 2 feet in diameter. So each day Tom went out and cut some of the logs to size and split them. I helped stack them and we got maybe a cord and a half of wood. It's been warm and we have not burned a lot of wood this year.

Thursday we went to Branson. We were meeting some of the kids and grandkids at Silver Dollar City on Friday. We thought we'd go up early and do some shopping and see the shows and stores we wanted to see so we could focus on Friday on what the others had the interest and attention span to do. We dropped off cranberry nut bread at sisters houses and work, dropped off the truck to get fixed and mailed letters and packages on the way out of town.

It really was a delightful, low-stress day. We snacked on the way up. Had "lunch" at Andy's, and visited some stores. We found Christmas presents we were looking for... and some that we hadn't known we "needed." We got to Silver Dollar City about 3:30 and wandered through stores, enjoyed the lights, and saw the parade, and then the musical, "It's a Wonderful Life."  It was about 7:30 pm when the show let out, and it was snowing tiny flakes of snow. It was such a delightful Christmassy feeling to walk in the cold, all bundled up, with tiny flakes coming down.

(If you look carefully at these soldiers, you'll notice only the ones in the middle are real.  The others move their legs in proper order... the feet just don't touch the ground.)

Friday we wandered through Dick's 5 & 10 cent Store. Alas, not much was between 5 and 10 cents, but they have such an amazing variety of things in there. We asked. Inventory takes a full 2 weeks with extra hired help.

Getting family together at Silver Dollar City was more of an ordeal than I had expected. Miranda and Dan were coming and between us we had 3 extra tickets. We invited Deborah to come with her three little ones that didn't need passes. Ian planned to come, too. Then we realized the park didn't open until 1pm. and Deborah would need to leave soon after to pick up kids. So we invited Kristy and her two kids that were at home.

Then Kristy's kids started getting sick. Then on Friday, Ethan wasn't feeling well. So Dan stayed home with Ethan and Miranda, Alex and Camden came. Kristy was slowed a bit with car problems and the danger if a sick child, but she soldiered on.

We first saw Dicken's A Christmas Carol and the kids seemed to enjoy it. Then we went on the Lost Mine ride. They measured Alex and decided he was tall enough... but he was unhappy at the end. It has some dark places and a bit of a roller-coaster ride. That didn't set well with Zachary either. Well, probably it wouldn't have mattered. He puked.

Then he settled into the stroller and was the best sick kid I've ever seen. Others went on rides or played in the ball pit. He watched, slept, zoned out, and occasionally emptied his stomach again. As night came, we watched the parade of lights and the Christmas tree do some of its lights and singing and then headed home. It was a nice time.

 

 

Saturday I caught up on my six zillion emails. I ordered my tickets to go to Mom's and Tom made snickerdoodles. We went to a baptism at 5 pm and then to the Ward Christmas social at 6. We had cookies, Christmas song singing, and a living nativity. I loved the shepherds with missionary badges on... and the sweet infant baby Jesus of our and Mary and Joseph- a young couple in our ward and newborn son.

Santa also came:

 

Today I opened the back door and saw a gray streak running to the barn. I think we now have THREE cats. This one looks like a young one-- couple of months old.

Today at church we had mostly music for our Sacrament meeting. I was beautiful and spiritual.