Larry got a great gift this year, he is going golfing tomorrow.  I know that sounds dumb but he is going golfing with an old friend who no longer lives here and that is what makes it great.

It hurt when David and Valerie moved back to Maryland.  I met Valerie when we were on the same walk team for the 3 Day Breast Cancer walk here in Tampa Bay.  Our friendship deepened quickly.  We did a lot of things together and made many memories.  The day they left was very hard on both Larry and I.  He lost his golf buddy, and I lost a close friend, a dear friend.

They came home to Florida this year for a very special reason.  After 17 years of marriage and going through all the tests as to why they could not get pregnant, at 44 years old, Valerie’s pregnancy test strip was positive and last April, Sasha Marie came kicking and screaming into this world.  They are so blessed and Sasha is absolutely beautiful with tumbling dark curls like her mom.

Of course they came home for Christmas, home meaning where all the relatives moved when they retired-Spring Hill, Florida.  Coming home gave Larry and I the gift of celebrating Christmas Eve the way we did when they lived here.  Valerie is Puerto Rican and the dinner she prepares is out of this world.  The house is filled with love and laughter and this year the joyful noises an 8 month old  makes.

Yes, tomorrow is special because for one more day Larry has his golfing buddy back.  And I love it when my husband has his moment of special times.

Me, I always have Valerie, we talk, we email, we text – girlfriends do that.

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One thing I have found that taking a deep breath before opening your mouth over anything as in ANYTHING is always the better way to go.  In taking a deep breath your thoughts become more clear, your eyes lose that glazed over angry look, and you are much less apt to let go of a barrage of bad words.

The people who work in the big box stores, department stores, grocery stores, drug stores and every other service industry related business are people.  They are not responsible for a store no longer having just what you came there for, they are not responsible for any of us waiting till the last minute to shop, and they do not deserve to ever be yelled at, cursed at, or treated in any way that you, yourself, deserve.

Everything is busier right now.  No matter where you turn there are crowds of people walking, driving, standing in long lines-whatever and yes patience is tried but so is the patience of those helping us to make our holidays happier.

Yesterday we were out in the frenzy of shoppers to run many errands.  The first errand we did was to stop at LifeSource Blood Services where Larry gave his pint of life to someone, somewhere in this area who may need his gift to make it through Christmas.

After donating we went to Ruby Tuesday for lunch.  We had a lovely young waitress who told us she has not worked in 2 years, and now that she has a 10 month old baby she had to go to work, and working at a restaurant was all she could find.  She is an excellent waitress.  She was professional, caring, kind and polite.  She teased us about going shopping and mentioned she had to stop to finish her shopping at JC Penney later that day.

We had a very nice lunch, a buy one get one free lunch.  I would like to place a reminder here, when you use a deal like this you tip on what the bill would have been not what it is.  The owner of the restaurant isn’t going to pay their staff for the difference – come on readers – don’t “cheat” your wait person.

Back to story at hand- we left and shopped and got everything done and as we crossed our errands off the shopping list there was one item left.  I had a coupon for JC Penney.  A $10 off any item coupon.  I could have tossed it at home, but instead I drove back to Ruby Tuesday and asked for Alissa.  She was just ending her shift and as I handed her the $10 off coupon I felt there was an angel straightening out my halo at that moment.  No, I am not an angel, I just felt like one then.

It just feels so good inside when you spread the joy, when you make someone else feel good, when you smile or when you thank someone from your heart.  It wasn’t hard to turn my car around and help someone who deserves it.  In my life many people have helped me in the past.

We can all keep the Christmas spirit if we just remember everyone deserves to be treated the way we expect to be treated.  It is that simple.

Merry Christmas.

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It’s 3 days till Christmas and over the past week I have seen more drama than usual on Facebook (not from me) and in Tweets so I got to thinking about this because we all arrive in this season with great expectations and I don’t think many of those expectations are fulfilled.

We sit back and watch all those old holiday movies and memories are stirred of holidays from years ago and the next thing we know we want those memories to come back to life.

Happy memories are a wonderful thing to hold onto and they should be remembered but they should not be ruling our present day way of celebrating the holidays.  They are the real ghosts or Christmas past and they need to stay in the past.  Yes we should honor them but then we need to package them up and put them away because George Bailey and Bedford Falls is fiction and sorry folks but George is up in heaven ringing bells.

Last night I sat down and talked to my husband about my memories of Christmas when my children were growing up and certainly there were many wonderful Christmas days.  When they were very young I would put their gifts into K-Mart layaway and still go into debt to give them the presents they wanted.  We were poor.  We struggled when they were young.

Our family size had diminished with the passing of my father, and the fact my brother had moved away.  The aunts, uncles and cousins would visit but not usually on the day itself.  In fact when I worked in hospital nursing I worked on Christmas Day.  I worked the 3-11 shift for several years on Christmas Day.

We also had a Christmas with a child in serious medical condition throughout the entire season.  The day we always put our tree up, Dec 13, we ended up driving to our pediatrician’s office where there was no electrical power.  We had to carry our son up 3 flights of stairs where he was examined by the doctor on call using an emergency power light.

Meningitis -spinal meningitis was the Christmas memory that year and even though we were all home for Christmas, we were back in the hospital Christmas Day because the antibiotics had not done a thorough job.

There was also the Christmas when I would sit in a cold basement and construct a doll house in between crawling into bed because I had a massive strep infection that damaged a heart valve.  At one point I had to use a chair to lean on and walk, that’s a memory I don’t like to think about.  However the kids still got Christmas.

As time went by and life happened I spent some Christmas days alone.  That’s an eye-opening experience.  I don’t think anyone realized I was alone – as I said life happens.

It would be a perfect world if all families could get together every year in peace (haha) and have a perfect celebration.  However we are not perfect people.  Many of us have moved for many reasons, children have grown up and started their own traditions.  Nothing ever remains the same except on television and in the movies.

Many celebrations do resemble the script from the Focker movies and while we sit back and laugh at the movie, in real life the stress of familial changes is hard to accept.

I prefer to think that if we all thought of ourselves as the Simpsons and accepted the craziness of family in present times the holidays would be accepted for how they really are.

In closing the movies and television are a diversion for sure during stressful times, but as I posted in an earlier blog about choice and how our own personal choices are things we need to take responsibility for in life, we can choose to just live in the present during this season and accept that life happens, people move, children grow up, people have passed on, and smile when we remember how it was and then smile again for how it is.

Merry Christmas.

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Families – can’t live with them, can’t live without them.

In this case we are visiting our son and his family with 7 of us in one small ranch home in Parma, Ohio and 1 real bathroom.  It’s a juggling act.  It works though.  You just can’t allow things to build up if you catch my drift.  2 cups of coffee can build real fast.

Throw into this mix that two of the seven are 15 year old girls, twins at that!  Oh it’s fun, but it really is fun.  I wouldn’t have it any other way because this will pass too quickly and then we will get into our car and drive 1061 miles home and away from those we love most.

Who knows when the next time we all get together for a holiday will be.  Things are changing, grandchildren are getting older, the family dynamics change constantly.

Next year we will have a new baby in the family.  We will also probably have had a wedding.  Yes, the times are changing.

It’s hard to be a guest too.  This year we are the strangers in a strange new world of holiday traditions.  I actually don’t know what is more stressful, putting on a big dinner or not knowing how others celebrate.  I feel this makes it an excellent opportunity to drink wine.  Then again too much wine could make me less stressed it might stress everyone else out.

Larry and I are very used to spending holidays alone – and the one I miss spending with family the most is Thanksgiving.  We have always had fun celebrations on Christmas because we have a big group of friends that get together and party.  I truly miss putting a big spread together on turkey day.

All I can say is that tomorrow this will all be a memory, and today I will be grateful for all that I have.  Grateful that I am here with loved ones.  Grateful for so many things – most of all grateful I am loved and that I am not a turkey.

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Don’t get me wrong, I do like turkey.  I like it the day it is roasted.  I do not like it after it dehydrates in the refrigerator.  I do not like warmed over stuffing.  In fact I really don’t like leftovers much at all.  I am not fond of opening the refrigerator and seeing boxes of left over turkey either so I took care of that!

Larry on the other hand loves left over turkey.  He could eat it year round – but then I would need a 500 pound bird and that ain’t happening in my life time.  While Larry was busy plunking around on his computer on Sunday afternoon, I took the remaining turkey and I made a huge pot of Turkey Chili and a big pot of Turkey Vegetable soup.  The Chili ended up in small containers for Larry’s lunches, and the soup also ended up in the freezer for now because this afternoon after replenishing the larder, I will make Turkey Tortilla soup.   I am sure it will be every bit as good as the chicken version.  Larry should end up with enough turkey for a couple sandwiches and then it will all have been recycled and that makes me happy.

There are only two of us in this house and yet we have a 25 cubic foot refrigerator in the kitchen and in the garage we have not only a full freezer but also another refrigerator (with no freezer compartment).  The refrigerator in the garage holds a lot of beer and wine, a case of FUZE, Larry’s apples and oranges, a case of yogurt, leftovers, and usually extra produce.  I like a clean and neat refrigerator.  The one in the kitchen holds all the things I use on a daily basis and is very neat and organized.  I am not a fanatic like this one pharma rep I worked with who actually organized her pantry and refrigerator alphabetically.  I just like being organized.

Thanksgiving wiped me out though.  I am on empty and need a trip to the grocery store today.  Over the past 5 days I depleted my reserve.  However it was all worth it.  We had a delicious Roast Glazed Turkey that literally fell off the bones.  We had a Rustic Bread Stuffing with Dried Cranberries, Hazelnuts and Oyster Mushrooms.  We had Scalloped Sweet Potatoes in Lemon-Ginger cream which were my favorite part of the dinner and I will make those again.  We had Green Beans in Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette, and  I made a Honey Lemon Cranberry Sauce.  Two people and all that fuss.  I love the fuss and when we have no guests I can fuss up a storm and step away from the traditional family dinner.

My Christmas dinner is over the top too, but we love being in the kitchen together and emptying the larder so to speak.  Last night though I had enough meat and potatoes and I whipped up Ravioli and a salad.  Enough is enough and recycling the turkey puts a new spin on “Bye Bye Birdie”.

The house is now decorated for the holidays and Taffy has claimed his favorite spot in the house.  He sits on the floor right next to Larry’s electric train because he is our little engineer.  He loves that train.  He sits there hoping it will magically start up – that train makes his day.

Corky however is distressed, we had to move our furniture around and he has lost his favorite spot.  I have attached the picture I got of him last week where he sits his butt down on the arm of the leather sofa and stretches his body across the end table.  He loves it there, he can see out the front window and be master of all he surveys.

By the way a lot of the left over turkey found it’s way into the dog’s food dishes too-they promised not to tell Larry.

Corky

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Yesterday I sent out my Thanksgiving email to those closest to me.  I told all of them that as I put their names into the address bar I would pause to think about how they have impacted my life.  One of the people I sent the email to is a newer friend.  She has had a phenomenal year in her family.  Her beautiful daughter went through with a direct adoption and on October 13th was named baby Zane’s legal parent.  It is a single parent adoption, and Zane is a beautiful little boy.  His face lights up in one of the sweetest smiles whenever anyone comes near him.  He is one of the most social babies I have ever met.  I love to get down on the floor and play with him.

Zane is bi-racial and one of his mother’s friends has three little boys.  When the middle child saw Zane, he said “I don’t know if you realize this but I think Zane is going to be a black man when he grows up.”  Out of the mouths of babes.

As I said, Zane’s grand mother is a newer friend and this is what she sent me in reply:
May your Thanksgiving be the best ever.  Thanks and Giving what two wonderful words to put together and to put into use.  Blessings Carol

Me again, how simple and how very true.  One day out of the entire year, or one long weekend, if you have friends and family in to visit and yet if you really think about it shouldn’t this be in practice every day of the year?

I practice gratefulness every day.  I am a big believer in the book The Secret and before I even throw my covers off I am thinking of all the things I am grateful for in my life.  It doesn’t matter how crabby I might feel any particular morning, I can’t stay crabby if I am going over in my mind everything I am grateful for in my life.  I always start with being grateful for meeting and marrying Larry.  I have said this before and I will say it again here, he is the only husband I have had-the only one who deserves the title of husband.  My second grateful point is my health.  Good health is everything, if you do not have it, your life is totally in disarray.  My list goes on and that is as far as I will go, but you get the idea.

The last thing I do before falling asleep comes from the book also.  I replay what happened that day and if there is anything that truly upset the apple cart for me, I go over it again only I change the outcome.  It could have been a slight disagreement with Larry (which is very rare), it could have been about someone who did not call me on my birthday, it could be the burnt rice in the microwave.  Whatever it is I change the way it all went down and I fall asleep in a much better frame of mind.  Doing this at bedtime puts a different spin on being grateful, because when I reflect on a different outcome I see the gratefulness in the situation.

That covers the first half of the word Thanksgiving.

The second half is about giving as in giving back.  The other day I was in line at the local grocery store, and the woman in front of me was short by $2 and some change and was about to put something back, and I said “I will cover the difference for you because I believe you will do it for someone else some day.”  It is a version of paying it forward.  When I made the decision to walk in the Breast Cancer 3-Day it was definitely because I want to raise a good sum of money to pay it forward because of all the wonderful people who had walked before me and were paying it forward.  In my life I think of the good things I try to do as paying it forward rather than giving back.  Although it is only semantics, i prefer to pay forward because giving back seems like something one has to do, not something one wants to do.  I pay it forward every time I sit down at my desk on Thursday mornings and talk to women who have breast cancer in their lives and need a friendly voice on the other end of the phone.  I pay it forward when I blog because I know I have a way with words and my intention is to get readers to pause and think.

How is this one to stop and make you think?  Anyone who lives near a military base can invite soldiers for dinner on a holiday.  There are many brave men and women sitting in barracks eating military base food (which I am sure is decent) but they are not in a home with a gathering of people.  What about a local soup kitchen?  I just watched one on TV In the Bowery that will feed over 5,000 people this year.  Yesterday I watched a woman who was living with her family in a pop up trailer one year ago.  This year they will open their home to 35 strangers for Thanksgiving dinner because they are so grateful their lives are better.

Everyone who complains about the stress of the holidays should be thinking about those who are stressed because they have no holiday.  In this “all about me” world though we tend to think about that casserole our great aunt makes that no one likes but we have to put it somewhere on the table.

I watched the Obama family go to a soup kitchen on the news, and thought how hard is it to teach our children the importance of reaching out?  How hard is it to give up several hours of one day to pay it forward?  How close have any of you here been to needing a helping hand at one point in your life?  I have been there.  When my children’s father died he left us with tremendous medical bills, and a first and second mortgage.  My little salary did not cover both mortgage payments and I had to let the second mortgage go.  I could not pay it.  This was back in 1986 when foreclosures were low and banks had time to process a foreclosure quickly.  I had the letter, I was given thirty days to pay it all back or the sheriff would arrive and nail our door shut.

The kids father had worked for years for General Electric and he had a life insurance policy.  You and I both know that big companies don’t like to write big checks.  They want to hold onto their money as long as they can.  I was desperate and they were not cooperating.  Finally I picked up the phone and told the employee on the other end that I would be getting in my car and driving to Schnectady the next morning to pick up this check as I had two days to save my family from foreclosure.  I did not have to do that, they promised I would have the check the next day by Federal Express. 

I am sure that Federal Express man was very surprised when an entire family ran up and threw their arms around him.  The check arrived one hour before the 2PM deadline! 

That is only one story during that time in my life when I was in real need of many helping hands. It is also one of those memories of bad times that in reality were good times.  When Bernie B gave her opinion in a Bernie B opinion this past week about why so many kids don’t honor thy parents she said:

I believe “Honor Thy Parents” went out the window when we tried to give our children a life better than the one we had growing up.  I guess we did not realize that, by making life easier, we were not giving our kids the chance to experience difficulty and the lessons learned there from.

I asked my oldest son the other day what that period of our lives taught him, and he told me it showed him how much he was loved and how far I would go as a parent for him.  Now that is an honor for sure.

I have no regrets in my life.  To have regrets would be a waste of my time because I cannot change things. Regretting things means one is focusing on the negative, gratefulness and giving are positively charged experiences that will give you an energy boost while taking you away from the “all about me” time frame and yet bringing it back to that.  Why?  Because the end result is you feel better so it is all about you isn’t it? 

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Everytime I hear someone say their birthday is on or very near Christmas I have immediate deep empathy for them.  I am a Thanksgiving baby.  June never let me forget that either.  I was born on a Tuesday and she had to be in the hospital on Thanksgiving Day eating cardboard turkey.  Not my fault, I was the innocent babe. 

As I was growing up of course birthdays were very special because the whole family would get together for the holiday and I got presents.  It was always fun.  In retrospect I can understand why Christmas babies feel cheated, and they probably are.  I always got what I considered to be a goodly amount of goods.

I believe the anniversary of the day you were born is the most important day in the whole year.  It is your day.  It is special because everyone of us is special.  I love my birthdays, even as I grow older, I love my birthdays.   I love presents too.

Once I married and had children of my own things changed.  The people who in the past had planned the parties and baked the cakes were not doing that any longer.  I was making Thanksgiving Day memories of my own for my family and my birthday celebrations fell by the wayside.  I always had a German Chocolate cake and I have not had a home made birthday cake in absolute years.

If you have a holiday/birthday then you probably also have the same feelings.  Worse yet is if people do remember it is usually too late for them to pop a card in the mail to get to you on time.  I do get a card from Larry’s daughter and her family every year and it does arrive on time.

My BFF, Judie, always gets my gifts to me on time.  Judie makes the effort because she is always about her birthday and guess what?  Judie’s birthday is on or near Memorial Day.  She knows how it feels.  Holidays screw with mail delivery.  My kids cards usually get here before my birthday, but not always.  Larry of course is always the first one to tell me Happy Birthday.  He has never missed the day, and never would.  However when it comes to his grand children he would never be on time.  I am the one to remind him every year to pick up the phone.  His family doesn’t celebrate adult birthdays except for cards and calls, and I think that is a real shame.  I think parents should never be left ungifted.  It is a respect issue, and the fact that you appreciate what your parents did and sacrificed for you as you grew up. 

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that these days many kids no longer “Honor Thy Parents”?  That is a plural word, parents.  Not one, but two and if you have two parents (still) then I hope you are honoring both of them.

Bernie B wrote sent her ideas of why the honor commandment has changed and here it is:
I believe “Honor Thy Parents” went out the window when we tried to give our children a life better than the one we had growing up.  I guess we did not realize that, by making life easier, we were not giving our kids the chance to experience difficulty and the lessons learned there from.

Boy Bernie you are right on target.  The parent who seems to have given the most also at times gets the short end of the stick.

When Larry and I first hooked up I had hoped that I was marrying into a family who would come to appreciate the traditions I wanted to share.  I have since learned that this infringed on the traditions their parents had forged as they grew up.  When I think back I can see and understand how I was the intruder.  It took me years to get to this point and understand.  It also took a lot of time and energy spent on the soup to nuts dinners, the gift buying decisions, and making excuses to my family as to why I was not with them.  At this point I have forged new traditions for Larry and I and I stay out of the family thing.  I remember a very wise person once told me that when she became a step mom she told his kids whether you like me or not is your decision but my opinion and feelings count with your dad, as they should, and I can be your best friend or no friend at all.  I was only looking for friendship and while I am disappointed that did not happen at least we are all very pleasant to each other.

This year I have a commitment on both Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I have a 4 hour commitment to be on the phone on the breast cancer hotline that I volunteer with, and I am proud to be there.  The gift of time is one of the best gifts to give or receive.

Going 40 miles out of your way to visit a family member at the holidays is a gift of time that should be given too.

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About a year ago the AARP magazine ran an article on grand parents who actually were going into deep debt over the feeling that they have to spend big money on their grand children.  In many cases the very children we all raised make more money than we make.  In talking to my friends who are grand parents we all agreed that we have expenses our kids don’t have.  For example we may take more prescription drugs with a stiff co-pay.  We have more doctor visits than our kids do and those come with co-pays too.  Or we may already be receiving social security and trying to live off of it, and that meager check is not going to stretch to gift giving.

Many of my friends have cut back, some have stopped completely, others like Larry and I chose to do birthdays only and skip Christmas.  Now we have this economy and in our personal financial lives there is no money for birthdays either. 

The AARP article mentioned grand parents going broke because of feeling guilty.  When Larry and I looked at our budget we had no guilt in making the decision that there will be no gift giving the rest of this year.  We are not pulling out the credit cards, we are not withdrawing money from our savings account, the buck has to stop here.  Worse yet is when your gifts get sent without being a thank you or if your family goes miles away to visit but cannot stop by your house on their way home.  I have heard those stories too.

Between both of us we have 5 grand kid birthdays startint today and ending Christmas Eve.  We have a total of 8 grand kids at Christmas.  Based on our usual $50 per kid limit that is a total of $650 that in these precarious times we need to keep for ourselves.

Every time we turn on the news we hear about retailers that are expecting a very bad season, this is news???  In order to take a trip back to Chicago we used free airline tickets and we are staying with relatives with the exception of one night.  That night is free from a Holiday Inn customer club.  We are going because so much is “free” but we still have to eat and take cabs. Parking at the airport is not free and we don’t have a free dog sitter. However I felt it was important when I proposed the trip to Larry.  He is an engineer and I always have to lay the scenario out in writing, but he saw the importance of it too.  It is the gift of time, fun and laughter with his family.  I know he will love it.  I will love watching him and I will enjoy the visit too.  And we have not been back home in 4 years, we miss that town.

Many of my friends are long distance grand parents and most cannot afford to fly here and there and hit all the cities the kids live in, it is absolutely not possible.  When we were growing up our parents took us to our grand parent’s houses.  I grant you we all lived in the same area then.  Years later when my grand mother moved to Tampa, we came to Tampa for Christmas one time, and the rest of the time my uncle sent her to visit us.  He probably enjoyed his freedom and my grand mother was an angel in my life so it made my holidays special.

Unfortunately holidays thed to bring out hurt feelings too.  No one can please everyone.  Add to that mix divorce and remarriage – remember that phrase ‘blended family’ ?  Well I do not think that there is much blending in most cases.  First of all when I think of that term I see a blender and if you put every member of any extended family into that blender I do not believe you would end up with a smoothie. 

The thing that most kids don’t take into consideration is this, we would love to be with everyone for the holidays.  We really would.  No one likes to miss the little ones opening presents, or the fun and feelings of the season with loved ones.  We are no exception but in a lot of cases life has interfered and not all of us fit into the family traditions and in many cases kids choose sides and someone is left out.

Thanksgiving morning I will be on the volunteer hot line for the breast cancer support group I volunteer with, I did not even consider asking for the day off.  Larry can handle the preparations for dinner.  I volunteer every Thursday morning and when you look at your calendar Christmas Day and New Years Day fall on Thusday this year. Giving the gift of time to someone who is alone and terrified is better than any present I can think of receiving.

Actually we have had lovely peaceful holidays since moving to Florida.  We spent one Christmas and New Year’s in Paris, France.  We have been given the gift of good friends and I always make a knock out gourmet meal.  We make our own celebration, feel guilty?  Heck no we would feel more guilty if we spent money we don’t have.   I hope more people can stop the insanity of going into deeper into debt and realize that now more than ever we have to be more cautious with our spending without feeling we owe our family something we don’t have.

Paint me green alright, the color of money green this year and I hope with all my heart this is a one year deal and that next year I can pull out my wallet.  Thanks to Cathy and Marge who sat down with me and shared their feelings.  It is not easy being green but necessary this year.

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