Merry Christmas 2008

Christmas 2008 has come and gone, but the memories will linger on! It has been awhile since we have had the joyful laughter of little children eagerly awaiting the arrival of Santa Claus, but this year we counted down with Taisley and watched her excitement grow as we moved day-by-day closer to Christmas Day. We watched Kendi struggle to decide where she would spend her Christmas Day - with her mom and sister here at home or with her dad and cousins in a mountain cabin at Fish Lake. Grandma Doris struggled, too, with that decision. Should she stay home in Corona, CA with her memories or come to St. George to share the holiday with family making new memories? During this relatively quiet holiday, we had a little snow, several holiday parties, a lot of mall time and saw Stacy, Taisley, Kendi, Grandma Doris, Kaytee, Josh and Adyn; Allysa and Josh and Whitney. At the same time, we greatly missed Larry, David, Kris, Kelly and Michael, who could not be with us because of winter weather, economics or job responsibilities. During this holiday season, we ate too much, spent too much and watched way more than our share of those two-hanky holiday movies on FaLaLa Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel. All-in-all, it was not the most memorable Christmas we have ever had, but it was nice, quiet and friendly.

Side note: I did not make my "famous" Ribbon Jello Salad for Christmas dinner (which no one ever eats anyway). As a result, Stacy believes she will need to spend time with a therapist to work through her disappointment.

Here's a little poem which I thought fit our family circumstances exactly:

WE WON'T HAVE A CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR
by Verna Teeuwissen

We won't have a Christmas this year, you say
For now the children have all gone away.
The house is so lonely, so quiet, so bare
We can't have a Christmas without them to share.

We won't have a Christmas this year, you sigh
For Christmas means things which money must buy.
Misfortunes and illness have robbed us, we fear
Of the things that we'd need to make Christmas this year.

We won't have a Christmas this year, you weep
For a loved one is gone and our grief is too deep.
It will be a long time before our hearts will heal,
And the spirit of Christmas again we will feel.

But if you lose Christmas when troubles befall,
You never have really had Christmas at all.
For once you have had it, it cannot depart
Since the true meaning of Christmas is Christ in your heart.

Speaking of Snow . . .

My brother Larry has been planning for sometime to fly to LA to pick up Grandma Doris, then drive up to St. George for Christmas . . . but, Mother Nature had other plans! The biggest snow storm to hit Seattle since 1861 has brought the city to a virtual standstill without public transportation or mail service. Most of Seattle is unable to get to work or to other essential destinations (like the grocery store). Larry, who is on vacation until January 5, had originally planned to fly out on Sunday afternoon, but upon realizing that was probably not going to happen, he rescheduled his flight for Tuesday morning . . . at a cost for the change of $175! On Monday morning, the Seattle Airport was closed, leaving thousands of travelers stranded. Today Larry - in desperation - doned his heaviest coat and most trustworthy shoes and headed down the very steep hill from his condo to the nearest grocery store - a trek of about 1.5 miles one way which took him more than an hour to get there and an hour back for bread, milk and eggs! We will certainly miss his humor and interesting conversation (just as long as you keep him off the subject of politics) around our Christmas dinner table and we hope his cute little red Crossfire will soon be thawed out! In the meantime, Larry has no sympathy for us in southern Utah who got dusted - not dumped on - last week!

Dashing Thru the Snow . . .

Someone somewhere in southern Utah must have been "dreaming of a white Christmas" because on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 the sky darkened, the temperature dropped and it began to snow in Las Vegas, Nevada - which was so unusual it was the lead story on Thursday morning's "Today" Show. But the real news in St. George was that we had snow, too. We only got about 3-5 inches and it was heavy, wet and mostly gone by Thursday afternoon, but it was enough to close the schools throughout the district - not because it snowed but because the city has no snow removal equipment. In all the years we have lived in St. George we have only seen measurable snow - enough to close the schools - three times (I only remember two, but Kaytee swears there was a school closure when she was a kid). The first time was in January 1979, the first winter we lived here. We had just moved from Salt Lake and our kids thought it was the funniest thing they had ever heard of to have a "snow day" with only 3 inches of snow. Thirty years later Kendi and Taisley woke up today to the news school had been cancelled. Tomorrow will be "business as usual" but for today, they enjoyed the opportunity to make snowmen and pelt each other in a good natured snowball fight. One week before Christmas, the girls made some good memories together!