11 DAYS.. THE COUNTDOWN

Good morning bloggers.. It's the wee hours of Friday, December 15..so counting today, it's actually 11 days till Christmas.
I like to make cookies at Christmas.. on my list are Peanut Butter Blossoms.. a favorite cookie in our family, quickly followed by brownies and chocolate chips. Mmmmmmm... I have to be careful eating cookies.. they tend to show up on my hips much too quickly.
I may try some cookies this weekend. I may have to enlist the aid of a few grandkids to complete the task.
Cookie parties are fun!

I still have packages to wrap, but all the boxes are now sent... I think. Christmas gives one the opportunity to be extra generous to friends and family when you don't have any other excuse. It's a happy season.
It also gives one a really good excuse to get the house in order.. clean up.. and enjoy the colors of the holiday. I think one needs color in the winter. The leaves are gone from the trees outside.. and the mud in place of snow at the moment isn't particularly pleasant for the eyes.. so the colors do make a difference. There are many of us who "suffer" from seasonal depression.. light related... the colors seem to make a difference to us too.. Of course, I'm about the most colorful person I can think of.. my family can attest to that. I surround myself with it.

We don't buy a lot at Christmas, but we do buy things we wouldn't ordinarily. Shrimp is high on the list. Mandy and John have already purchased a quantity of cocktail shrimp which we'll take to Vulhop's on Christmas Day. It's becoming a holiday tradition for us. I like that tradition.. I love cold shrimp.
I remember a couple years ago going to the office Christmas party and having a dinner.. I ordered shrimp cocktail with my dinner as an appetizer. There were about 8 enormous shrimp served to me. The others in my party thought ordering shrimp was yucky, but after they saw what I got, they all wanted 'a taste'.. so I shared my precious favorite with them all. Well.... after that, they didn't think it was so bad.

I love having people stop by at Christmas.. It's such a nice time..and one can serve them cookies and coffee/tea or whatever we have to drink. I like to visit others too.. just waiting for an invitation. *smile*

Christmas is a time when I think of past holidays.. when I was a child. Things we did..ate..memorable gifts received and given.. One that I've thought about recently was the year Wendell and I got Dad a new tool box for his TV service. He needed one so badly. We carefully planned.. went to see the merchant who Dad dealt with for years and asked his suggestion for a new box. We got him a nice one and proceeded to wrap it.. We thought we were clever- it looked like a TV complete with 'rabbit ears'. Oh, yeah.. he'd never guess this one..
So we gave him the package and he never even opened it before saying.. "Oh..a tool box- thanks."..
When the kids were little, we got things for them to give aunts and uncles.. one year Aunt Jane was given a well disguised gift which JJ was to present to her. JJ had to be all of 3 yr old then.. and Christmas was about the most exciting thing imaginable for her. I gave her the gift and she ran out to Aunt Jane excitedly unwrapping the gift as she went.. it was an umbrella and not much of a surprise by the time Jane got it. Funny stuff..
Then Bill and his family would come for a few days.. the kids were so delightful. Paul Imm must have been 4 yr old when someone wrapped up a new package of undies for him.. He didn't care.. he was so sweet.. "OH..!!
UNDERWEAR !! I really needed that!".. I'm laughing as I remember that day..
As the kids grew up and became adults, and the grandkids started showing up, we changed our gift giving for a few years by the adults exchanging names. I remember one gift I got from Paul and Amy that was wrapped uniquely with duct tape... all over and over and over.. I don't remember the gift, but I remember the wrapping.. it took about a half hour to open it !!!
Of course, in the more 'lean' years.. we made use of all kinds of wrappings.. there's another story.. One might get a gift wrapped in the colorful comics from a newspaper.. or perhaps birthday giftwrap..or wedding.. didn't matter anyway.. the idea was to wrap the gift. I think the most imaginative was the duct tape, however.
Mom had the right idea.. white tissue paper for all gifts.. inexpensive, and she'd usually have a piece of ribbon.. thin and pretty, tying it up. I need to do that too. It's really more sensible. Maybe next year.
I like to wrap gifts so that they aren't particulary obvious what is in the package.. The pool cue stick for Steve was wrapped like a candy cane.. pretty and he couldn't guess what he got..
I used to love wrapping gifts and got pretty good at it. The children would shop at the school Christmas programs and bring me the things to wrap.. More than once I'd wrapped my own gift!!
At the first office party I went to..we had a gift exchange.. I got my employer's name..aaacckk!! what does one buy for the good doctor?? He gave suggestions on his paper with his name on it.. so I went out and bought one of the items.. and then proceeded to wrap it. It wasn't much.. something like a box of special teas.. so I wrapped the box of tea. Then I wrapped a box which contained 4 other empty boxes and a message on the inside box that said "Merry Christmas.. your gift is somewhere in this room wrapped in shiny blue foil paper"..
I'd put in on a bookshelf in the room. How he laughed a hearty guffaw!
He said that was the best gift ever! Just the fun of opening each box and the anticipation of what it could be...And his kids were really 'into' finding that gift in the room.. and delighted when one of them spotted it on a shelf. It was the laughter and the squeals of delight at discovering the 'hidden' gift that made it special.
It was something everyone enjoyed and it added merriment to a dinner party.
This year I did something a little different.. I bought myself 2 gifts.. a digital blood pressure cuff and a 25' tape measure. Things I needed, but wouldn't have ordinarily bought for myself... and , no, I'm not wrapping them.
I'm done wrapping my own gifts like I did for the kids.. heheehe !
One more memory.. for years we bought Charlie boxes and boxes of chocolate covered cherries for Christmas. Mum said he loved them.. she thought he loved them. In actuality, he detested them..and never ate a one of them.. but Mum helped him out.. now, she loved them! We still laugh about that discovery..and threaten to buy him a box every year.. much like when we bought my Dad a hammer every year. Wonder if anyone ever discovered the scores of hammers we bought over the years that got lost??
Well, I've gone on and on.. I'll think of more memorable Christmas gifts.....
Good memories..