Wednesday, December 15
When we returned to the house yesterday afternoon, the first thing we noticed was Mother’s disassembled bed leaning up against the hutch in the living room. We knew that the new bed had been delivered last Thursday, but didn’t know that the deliveryman hadn’t moved the old one to the empty garage. The sight in the living room reminded us so much of what we had left at Jimmy Clint’s house, that it was like a blow to the gut, and the first thing we did, after greeting Mother and letting her know we were home, was to carry out the old bedding and get it out of the way (in the living room, of course…now it was just in the way in the garage, but we had a plan for that also).
This morning we moved the bedding around so we could work in the garage without stumbling over it every step and then moved inside to begin the business of catching up from the last week. Aside from fixing meals and taking care of daily household chores, the entire day was spent writing thank you notes for flowers and other kindnesses shown to us, making dozens of phone calls to wrap up Jimmy Clint’s unfinished business and accounts, and writing letters of appreciation to Embassy Suites and Lake Ridge Chapel for going the extra mile on our behalf.
Tonight we made a quick run out to Yantis to deliver some music to Aaron and Danette. Danette had asked me to arrange some Christmas music for a brass quartet or trio for the Sunday morning service. I was supposed to have had it to her by last week, but that obviously didn’t happen, so we got it to her tonight so Aaron and Zach (tuba player) would have a chance to look it over before Sunday.
Thursday, December 16
Today was pretty much a repeat of yesterday…so much paperwork and so many phone calls to make before we can wrap up the business of Jimmy’s passing and get on with the business of living and taking care of Mother.
During a short, slack period we managed to get downtown to look for some Christmas gifts. Since we didn’t get any shopping done in Lubbock, we were going to have to take time this week to start getting ready for Christmas. The store that we loved so much last Christmas is now closed because of a squabble between the business partners, but we did find another shop that handled some unique gift ideas, especially for the girls and ladies on our shopping list.
Friday, December 17
Today we put the business of business on hold and tackled the business of Christmas by spending the largest part of the day going through nearly every shop and store in town, looking for that “special” gift for each person on our list. For the past couple of years we have sent the kids and grandkids gift cards or money as their main presents, but this year, since we weren’t traveling and are hosting Christmas at Mother’s house for anyone who shows up, we requested gift lists from each family. The kids complied with our request and we set out to do the best we could to honor their wishes.
During one of the periods we were at the house, we received a beautiful box of California oranges from our neighbors John and Wanda. The oranges looked so good that we had to immediately sample them (and they tasted every bit as good and sweet as they looked).
We also had received two gorgeous Poinsettia plants, one from next door neighbor Addie, and another from Holiday Villages of Lake Fork, which greeted us when we returned on Tuesday…what a great extended family we have out there! Then, today Mother received a gorgeous table arrangement from brother Jerry and his wife Jane in New Mexico. This place has certainly “bloomed” into a regular florist shop!
This evening we reviewed our lists and purchases and started wrapping and labeling presents. The dining room table was a huge mess in no time at all and we figured that for the next few days we’d just move things around whenever we used the room for meals…after all, you can’t prepare for a great celebration without making a great mess.
In between trips to the stores and working in the dining room, I started my project of baking loaves of bread for folks on our ever-expanding gift list. I decided that this year I would bake only jalapeno and Italian bread. In the old days I baked bread for staff members at our schools, and it’s beginning to look like this is going to be every bit the major project that was.
Saturday, December 18
Today’s entry boils down to this: bake bread, shop, return home and wrap presents, start another loaf of bread, go out and shop some more, return to the house and wrap presents, etc., etc. The only break from the routine was to go to Sonic and buy a bunch of burgers, fries, and onion rings for Mother, TJ, and us to eat for lunch, and then it was back to the business of Christmas.
Tonight we spent nearly the whole evening checking lists against purchases and then wrapping as many presents as we could and stacking them in one of three piles…those for Christmas Eve, those to mail, and those for whenever we saw the kids and grandkids.
Sunday, December 19
Although the day was filled with some of our typical activities, it was NOT our typical Sunday. To begin with, I needed to get to the church early to put together the brass trio or quartet (or however many might show up) and practice at least once before we played for the service. Since Barbara needed to stay behind and watch Mother until TJ could come pick her up (Sophie was unavailable to help until this afternoon), I put my trumpet in one of the saddlebags and fired up the motorcycle for the chilly ride to Yantis.
As soon as I got to the church Danette told me that Aaron had forgotten his euphonium and had to drive back to the house and pick it up…also that she wasn’t sure whether Zach would be available as he had been called in to work today. I went ahead and did my warm-ups, hoping that we’d have something more than a trumpet solo for the special music.
Thankfully, Zach was able to rearrange his work schedule and arrived about 20 minutes before the service was to begin; good, now we had a trumpet/tuba duet. I talked to Danette and suggested that if Aaron arrived in time, we ought to do the brass piece right at the beginning of the service rather than as the offertory at the end, since we didn’t want to take a chance on losing Zach, and she agreed.
Luckily, Aaron arrived a couple of minutes before the service began. Our warm-ups as a trio consisted of playing along with the piano and organ on a set of hymns and choruses and then we struck up our trio arrangement of “Joy to the World,” with our practice also being our presentation…nothing like cutting things close. I sure was glad that the computer program I used to arrange the music also played it back so I knew that I hadn’t left in any little time bombs in the form of wrong notes.
When church was over we went to Holiday Villages, stopping first at the sales office to visit with the staff, drop off a couple of loaves of homemade bread, and pick up our latest POA gift, an infra-red turkey roaster, a gift we hoped to use later in the week for our Christmas dinner.
We spent the afternoon piddling around Our Little Lot, visiting with the neighbors and delivering bread.
I didn’t have choir practice tonight, but we did return to the church at 6:00 for the monthly business meeting and then returned to Mineola (Barbara made me leave the cycle at Big V!) to relieve Sophie of her duties and settle in for another evening.
Monday, December 20
Happy 66th Birthday today to Jim!!!
We arranged to have Sophie come in to sit with Mother for the day while we left for a “date day” to celebrate my birthday. One way we knew we weren’t operating on all cylinders yet is that we left the house without the camera, so we had to call Andy and ask that they bring one!
Anyway, we drove up to Grant, Oklahoma, for a couple of hours and then down through Paris and Commerce (hoping to connect with my friend Chris, but he and his family were in Colorado seeing their kids), and then on to Greenville, where we met Heather, Andy, Alexander, and Abby at Cracker Barrel for a delightful mini-family reunion. Mother sprung for our meal as a combined birthday/Christmas gift for us, and we spent more than 2 ½ hours visiting and eating. They seated us in an area of the restaurant that we had all to ourselves, so it was almost like having a catered private party.
We all needed to get back to our homes before dark, so we did some shop-looking while we were there (actually, Barbara had Andy do some shopping because she found a U.S. Air Force tee shirt in the store and had him get it for me and then she hid it until we got home), and then said our goodbyes before heading out again.
Back in Mineola we just spent a quiet evening doing not much of anything.
Tuesday, December 21
Happy Birthday today to daughter Heather Dondis in Richardson, Texas!!!
I started the day early by getting up at 5:45 to get ready and go out to Yantis for our weekly prayer meeting. When it was over, I stopped off at Holiday Villages to check on Big V and Our Little Lot before returning to start the day’s activities at Mother’s house.
I found Barbara working on the menu for breakfast when I got home. We had invited our friends Gene and Carolyn Neyer for brunch and one of Barbara’s famous quiches with all the usual trimmings. This time though, we had our biscuits with syrup, molasses, or honey instead of my gravy. It was nice to have a relaxed, but fashionable breakfast with the five of us chattering away while enjoying a great meal.
Somehow our conversation turned to two dollar bills (don’t ask why…it just happened) and Gene showed us a bunch of those bills that they had just bought. We ended up buying some from him to use as gifts for the grandkids.
When the Neyers left, we gave them several sweet potatoes and said that the next time we were in Yantis we’d check to see if they were still selling them from the Coker Farms trailer where we buy them for $8 a box.
We spent the rest of the day preparing for Leah’s arrival…she left Liberal early this morning and was coming to spend the week with us while Ryan is out working on a rig site.
We also took care of some more business concerning Jimmy Clint. We were thrown for a loop today when we got a call from LeeAnn at Lake Ridge Chapel telling us we needed to locate our marriage license, copy it, and fax it to the insurance company to get Barbara’s name legally changed on the policy. When Barbara took out the policies on John and Jimmy years ago she was Barbara Colwell. Several months ago she wanted to update the policies and they said they couldn’t do it without a copy of our marriage license to verify the name change. We sent them copies and they did the updates (we thought). Now they are saying they didn’t update Jimmy’s policy and they don’t have a copy of the license in their files, so we have to provide another one. I found the license easily enough and copied it here at the house, but had to go to our friendly Edward Jones agent to get it faxed…sure is nice to live in a town small enough to have friends in the right places!
Leah arrived late this afternoon and got unpacked and settled in. We had already decided that we would give Leah our room and we would sleep on the couches in the living room. Since we returned from Lubbock our sleep patterns have been erratic at best, and we figured that all we’d do is keep everyone awake if we went to sleep in our room and then spent the night wandering around the place.
The evening was fun as we visited and got caught up on the latest news from Liberal and our friends there.
Wednesday, December 22
In addition to the usual daily chores, we got Mother over to the beauty shop so Leslie could give her a wash, cut, and set to get ready for the holiday season.
I needed to visit with David Bagwell about a couple of things, so Barbara, Leah, and I drove out to Yantis. Barbara and Leah checked out the Dollar General store while I was talking to David and then came to pick me up so Leah could visit with David for a few minutes.
When we finished at the church, we drove across the street to the Coker Farms trailer and bought three more cases of sweet potatoes to use for ourselves and to give away as gifts (and to resell…no jacked up price, Gene!) to Gene and Carolyn.
On the way home we stopped off at Big V so Leah could see all the changes in our neighborhood and meet the new neighbors. Then it was back to Mineola for some serious shopping at Walmart before returning to the house to wrap and organize even more Christmas presents.
Thursday, December 23
Today was cold and damp all day…not much fun to be outside, but the circumstances dictated that we all had to get out at one time or another. Barbara and I left Leah at the house while we drove to Quitman to pick up Gene and Michelle’s mail at the post office and to look for some good children’s books (which we didn’t find). When we returned, Barbara and Leah went out to do some more shopping while I baked bread and went through the church music hymnal to pick out the music for tomorrow night’s Christmas Eve service at Yantis. One of the things I talked to David about yesterday was the music selection and he told me to just be sure to keep everything up-tempo. I will be leading the congregational singing because Danette and Aaron had previous family commitments and can’t be there.
The rest of our day followed the same pattern as the other days this week…start another loaf of bread every four hours (at least now I have two machines since Leah brought my old one from Liberal), shop, and wrap presents…we’re really getting the hang of this Christmas season thing!
One really exciting thing that happened is that this afternoon Mother came into the kitchen and not only oversaw the preparation of the cornbread for the dressing, she sat down and helped. Leah and I cut up the ingredients, Barbara took them to the table and stove top, and Mother stirred them all together. It’s been three years since Mother helped cook a meal, and it sure was fun to have her back in the kitchen today!
Our Christmas weekend dance card was rapidly filling up and with all of us going to Christmas Eve services this evening and TJ, Angela, Ladd, Logan, and Madelyn coming over for a gathering tonight after the services, we voted early this today that we’d have our own Christmas Eve celebration this morning.
So, when we were all finally awake and moving around (and Mother and I had our first couple of cups of coffee), Leah, Mother, Barbara, and I gathered around our little Christmas tree in the living room and started distributing presents to and from each other.
Mother made out like a bandit with several additions to her wardrobe along with some other personal items, but none of us felt slighted and we all had a wonderful time.
When we were done with the initial celebration, we fixed lunch, cleaned up the mess in the living room, and reset the “stage” for the next round, setting out the gifts that would be distributed tonight.
The service at Mother’s church didn’t start until 6:00, so when we got back around 6:15 we began setting out all the food for an informal meal. TJ brought some shrimp and Leah mixed her own cocktail sauce. Ladd brought some pieces of duck breasts that he had smoked, and we had sausage balls, cheese, and other assorted goodies to munch on…just can’t have a family gathering without lots of food!
After everyone had eaten (and while some of us were still munching away), we began another round of gift distribution. We all took turns playing Santa Claus and handing out gifts to each other…a great family evening together to celebrate a wonderful holiday…in spite of the down times this year, we are truly blessed!
Saturday, December 25
Merry Christmas to One and All!!! “There has been only one Christmas - the rest are anniversaries.” - W.J. Cameron
Even though we were up fairly late last night, we found ourselves up and around early this morning to make preparations for the day.
After a nice breakfast, we started work on today’s dinner menu…a large prime rib, because that has been the traditional Christmas dinner for TJ’s family, and turkey, because Leah didn’t get to have turkey for Thanksgiving this year.
As we reflected on the adventures of the day we couldn't help but count our blessings...Leah visiting us...phone calls to and from Heather and Whitney and their families...special Christmas greetings from John Carol, and Randi in San Antonio, and an extra-special Skype call from Mike and Kelly, the only kids we won't see this season, allowing us to watch them unwrap the gifts we sent them and giving Granny and them a chance to exchange Christmas wishes through the medium of modern technology.
For our family, Christmas is when we are together, so yesterday and today are only Part One of The Little's Christmas Story for 2010. There's more ahead, but that's news for another week.
“The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.” - Burton Hillis
Merry Christmas from Mineola, Texas,
Jim/Dad/Gramps & Barbara/Mom/Grams
