Merry Christmas!

Christmas in Minnesota was greeted by balmy temperatures, lots of sun, a westerly breeze, and no snow. And this year I could care less if we had a White Christmas or not. We had enough snow last winter to last for at least five Christmases. I don’t mind having a brown Christmas at all.

For some strange reason, I was on top of it this year as far as getting Christmas stuff done. I bought my presents long before the Christmas Eve rush. I went shopping on weeknights when the stores were almost deserted and the pickings were at the max. I found all the gifts I wanted to find.

I had them wrapped and under the tree a week before Christmas. I’m usually frantically wrapping on Christmas Eve between getting the turkey in the oven and taking it out.

I really hate baking cookies, especially Christmas cookies, because they’re so putzy. But I managed to bake five different kinds of cookies this year, including a coconut cookie that I’ve never made before. I didn’t burn the bottoms of any of the cookies. Even my cookie decorating came out nice. Usually my cookies look like a child baked and decorated them. The cookies even tasted good.

I got the Christmas cards out on time. The house was cleaned.

On Christmas Eve day everything was fresh and Christmasy. I planned so well, I even had a time for a walk around Como Lake in St Paul, MN and then I drove out to the cemetery to wish Ray a Merry Christmas.

The cemetery was packed, probably because the weather was so darn nice. We had so much snow last year that it was difficult to crawl over the piles to get near the graves. Gosh, the ground isn’t even frozen yet, so I’m sure that’s’ why people were out in droves, because they could actually get close to their loved one’s grave and were still able to stick a wreath or other decorations in the ground.

Prior to dinner, we watched videos that Ray made back in 2002-2004. They were of us when we were all younger than we are now. Quincy was three and Ashlin just a baby. It was fun watching them, and I didn’t even cry. Ray would say something while filming, and hearing his voice made me slip back into the past and wish that I could be back in that time period again.

A couple of the videos he shot were of me scrapbooking. I’m totally ignoring his camera, so the video catches me rearranging pages and trying to decide what photos to use. I can’t imagine anything more boring than watching someone scrapbooking, but it was kind of sweet that he decided to film me.

I miss Ray so much. It’s difficult being on the other side from where he is and just wait for my time to cross over and be with him again.

I roasted a turkey, made stuffing and all the trimmings, and we ate and ate and ate. Our tradition is that I sit on my butt while everyone else cleans up and puts the food away.

And the best part of the night for me was when my two grandsons came into the living room where I was sitting and the three of us just started talking. I’m very lucky to live close to my grandsons and I get to see them a lot so we KNOW each other. Now that they’re 12 and 10, we have really good conversations, like adults, not kids.

We talked about Christmases past and school and stuff. Five years ago we went up north for Christmas and there was no snow then either.

We opened presents. Quincy was Santa, and he’s a crappy Santa, because he overanalyzes how to distribute the presents, and keeps shuffling them around instead of being totally random.

I bought the boys iPod touches, because I can’t afford to buy two iPods.

The best present I got was the Amazon Kindle Fire, which I bought for myself.

Today was a quiet day with music and reading and watching some basketball. Susan and the boys are coming over later for dinner, so there was some cooking, too.

It was a nice Christmas, a stress-free Christmas, and the first I’ve had since Ray died. But it has a touch of melancholy, too. Ray put the JOY into Christmas for me. Even though Christmas is nice, the joy is gone.