Let’s see, what exactly is “normal?”
Christmastime is exciting and overwhelming. So, coming off the Christmas season is a transformation for me, anyway. I found a free weekend to take all the decorations down; it actually took two weekends. The tree was biggest challenge. I love the tree, but more than half the lights didn’t work anymore. I read up on un pre-lit trees, and I think I agree they may be more adequate in the long run. So, two bedrooms stayed laden with sections of this 9-foot tree for almost a week as we began cutting off light by light from each section, each branch. Finally, we had it all done, enough to go ahead and box up the tree for next year. I feel pretty good about it, I get to keep the tree I love, and I look forward to purchasing lights for it when we set it up again next year.
All this being said, I’m still in the process of baking cookies for those folks I didn’t see this year. Yes, the guilt was heavy, and I succumbed to the pressure. Upon visiting my son’s family of 5 before Christmas to open our gifts, he nonchalantly went into his pantry to grab the empty cookie tin from last year. Yes, I had failed to make them our “jelly cookies” before they left on their annual ski trip to Colorado. Okay, there’s Guilt #1, so I delivered a batch to their house last Saturday. We had our youngest daughter and her family of 5 with us for Christmas and she pretty much demanded we get busy making a batch of jelly cookies “Guilt #2” while they were with us. She agreed to “make the swimming pools” because she likes more cookie than jelly/jam. That’s okay, I’m easy to please, especially if someone else is making the pools. That’s the most tedious part of this tradition. Which, speaking of, my husband asked me if I remember how long I’ve been making them. I really can’t say … All I can remember is that it was in one of those little recipe books, a Pillsbury recipe, at the check-out register a really long time ago. The recipe itself had to be laminated several years ago because it was so brittle, it was falling apart.
Guilt #3 came from my oldest Grandson. He couldn’t wait to let me know how disappointed he was when his Mom & Dad showed up for Christmas in Laramie, Wyoming, without Jelly Cookies. Soooooo, Sunday evening I made a special batch just for The Grantster. I’ll send those off to him in Wyoming.
So, I guess, as you can see, things aren’t exactly back to normal.
I prepared some meals ahead of time this weekend, because one of these days, I’m going to set up the round card table and get busy on one of my new puzzles. I know from experience that NOTHING else will get done once I kick into puzzle time!
