Maybe there is a Merry Christmas somewhere

I was worried about how Christmas would go with my youngest daughter, Alicia, her new husband Buddy, and son Evan. We joined them for dinner on the 20th as we were headed out to New England. We bought Evan a Tinkertoy set which he opened after a wonderful dinner of stuffed shells Alicia had prepared (one of my all time favorites). The tinkertoys were a little different than I remembered, and had a few additional parts. The good part though, was that Evan (who is seven) dove right in and started making cars.

I guess part of Christmas is reliving Christmas as a child sees it. It is bright shiny and beautiful filled with beautiful sounds and smells. Best of all it has wrapping paper and surprises! I wonder if we looked at all of life that way it wouldn't bless us all and take some of the "bah humbug" out of life in general.

Holidays??

Well I am beginning to understand why people get depressed on holidays. We barely survived Thanksgiving by joining my son, Nate at a restaurant, now we get to figure out how to do Christmas! My youngest daughter Alicia has a step-son, Evan who is seven. They get to split him half-days with his Mom. I certainly haven't figured out my role in this. We have decided to get him a Tinker-toy set for Christmas, but honestly I still feel a little uncomfortable about it. I can see this has always been a tough time for Sue and I, coming from enormously different expectations.

She just mentioned the thought of going upt to New England for Christmas, and frankly the thought terrifies me. I guess I feel like a third wheel when Sue is with her family. Oh, well. With Nate moving out just before Sue's Dad passed away, we really haven't been able to have the time to figure out where we go from here. I guess I'm afraid if we went North that would never, ever get resolved.