In my last post I mentioned that I didn’t have Christmas till I was 9 or 10 years old.  Well, every year since then I have been with family for Christmas…until this year.  I wasn’t sure what Christmas would be like in our new lifestyle.  We had to make some adjustments.

When Jamey was a child at home, my first husband and I used to carol outside his door on Christmas morning to get him up to open presents.  After Jamey moved out on his own and married, Mark and I started calling him before we got out of bed in the morning and carolling him.  This time, because we don’t have cell phone service at our place on the mountain, we had to get dressed and drive to the nearest call box where we could get reception to make the phone call.  We sang with Jamey and Sarah on the Bluetooth in my car and had a good conversation for half an hour.  They are at her family’s house this week.  It was sure good to hear their voices!

When we got back and Mark was making pancakes, my younger sister, Lauryn, and her family Skyped me.  Again, it was good to see them and talk with them.  Then Mark and I had breakfast and lit the advent candles and read the Christmas story from Matthew.  I have been struck this year by Matthew 2:18 as I’ve been praying for the bereaved parents in Connecticut.

A voice was heard in Ramah,

Weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children;

And she refused to be comforted,

Because they were no more.

May they receive comfort.

Mark and I have a tradition we started when we got married.  We go together to the Dollar Tree with $10 in our pockets and buy each other gifts.  It’s fun because we have to avoid each other as we go through the store looking for things for each other.  This year I was all about getting Mark fun things to play with.  I love his boyishness and so I got him a paddle ball and a Whirl O Wheel, a tricky wooden puzzle that he still hasn’t figured out, and a magic set.  He got me a crossword puzzle book (knowing how much I love to do crosswords!), a Christmas CD, 2 packages of chocolate candy, and a book light for reading in the dark!  We also got our cats a couple toys that they obviously love.  One is a diamond shaped box with holes in it for putting treats in.  That drove Kimba crazy, especially when she figured out that if she worked at it long enough, she could get a treat!  Dobby and Kimba both loved the cat toy with feathers on it.  They got their exercise today.  🙂

This is the first time I’ve tried to make a full Christmas dinner by myself.  I had gotten a 3 lb boneless turkey roast with a gravy packet in it.  I cooked that in a meatloaf pan in the oven, made red mashed potatoes with the skins (something I’ve seen in restaurants and decided to try), peas with pearl onions that I put together myself, and we had cranberry sauce and a green salad.  We had Martinelli’s sparkling apple-cranberry cider, too.  For dessert, we had gone yesterday to our favorite internet cafe down below – Big Basin Cafe – and each ordered a slice of pie.  Mark had pecan pie and I had apple-cranberry pie with ice cream.  In years past my older sister has never let me make anything more risky than peas for our family gatherings, but I put on a whole feast today.  It was almost more than our tiny kitchen could handle, but it was sure good!  The only thing we missed was my mother’s special salad.  I’ll have to get her to send me the recipe.

All-in-all, we feel very rich this Christmas.  We have a DVD that plays Christmas music with a crackling fire in the background and a 3 foot tall Christmas tree and a small nativity set.  Everything is scaled down, but the basics are still here.  Our first RV Christmas has been cozy and full.  I hope yours was as good!