Old fashioned Christmas

I wish Christmas was like it used to be. Any more it has became a time to get gifts that put you in debt for at least a year on your credit card. Everything costs a small fortune and the fun of Christmas for adults has gone out the window.  Even teens have gone away from Christmas as every present they want is so expensive that they don't get them and then are disappointed as that is what Christmas is about. What you get...Where did the fun, love and Christ go?

Here are some Christmas memories that still melt my heart.

My dad always asked the grandkids "is it something to eat? every time he would open a present so one year they started in September making cookies and putting them  in the freezer. Come Christmas Eve they had this HUGE box full of cookies that took 4 of them to carry and they put it under the tree for grandpa. I remember the look on his face as he was trying to figure out what in the heck it was. Well Christmas morning the kids got their present for Grandpa and set in front of him waiting for his "if it isn't something to eat"  The pure joy on their faces was there for everyone to see as all 5 of them could hardly contain themselves.  

Sure enough as he opened the present he said "is it something to eat" (I don't remember the exact words he always used but I be those kids do)  He opened it up and saw all those cookies his mouth fell open as the kids rolled around on the floor giggling their heads off. When dad finally got his mouth shut from that he started laughing right along with the kids. I think they had cookies in the freezer for months.

Once when the kids were real little and we lived in Coos Bay Oregon mom and dad were coming down to spend Christmas with us. Dad borrowed the Santa suit from Ericksons and came down. He was suppose to only walk through the yard and make a noise where the kids would look out the big window and see him.  Well they did and they screamed at the top of their lungs and started for the bed stripping as they went where they could get into bed because Santa would not come if you were up. 

Dad got such a big kick out of their reaction that he could not resist knocking on the door and calling all of them by name.  They came out and talked to him and not a one of them realized they were talking to grandpa as they stared in amazement. Dad could hardly keep the tears out of his eyes. When he left he asked for Ed (My ex) to take him to the store to get a bunch of little stuff and then to everyone we knew who had small kids.

Off they went to peoples houses. The parents nor the kids knew he was coming but my ex was with him so he was let into the house. The looks on the parents and the kids faces were one of amazement. I know that GiGi crawled up on his lap and put her head on his chest and cried and cried. For years she talked about the year that Santa came to the house.  Most of the kids refused to open their candy, gum or bubbles as Santa gave it to them in person at their house and they were cherished items.  I don't think a kid there did not talk for years about the year Santa came.

I remember later in life when I explained to my kids that Santa is not a person but a feeling of love and giving. Santa is real, he lives in your hearts and what you do for others.

When I was a kid on the farm we always had snow and dad built this great big sled and he would hook up the tractor and go around and gets kids that wanted to go for a sled ride and off we would go. When we got home mom would have a big fire going in the wood stove at the end of our big country kitchen with home made hot chocolate and home made hot cinnamon rolls. We would eat drink and be merry. I can still smell that kitchen when we opened the door and to this day I still love both and hot chocolate on a winters evening with a wood fire still make it a special day for me.

After I grew up once a friend of mine was gripping that he hated Christmas because it was so expensive that he was in debt for the whole year and it seemed by the time he almost got the credit card paid off it was Christmas again so each year he went a little further into debt. The kids got older and the price of presents went up and up.  I told them they were doing it wall wrong. Think hard and come up with something fun.

He said he had a friend he wanted to get something little for but he knew they were really short on money and did not want them to feel they had to give him something.  It was a friend that he used to jam with their guitars together.  We went and got a 6 pack of beer and decorated it  all pretty with a tag that said "From Santa with love"  We went to his house Christmas Eve around 10pm and put it on his step outside the door, rang the doorbell and ran like heck and hide in the bushes. He opened the door looked around and saw it. He shook his head and looked at the tag and grinned and then looked again.  For months he tried to figure out who Santa was and it was hard for us not to grin.  Yep that was fun.

I went into dispatch one night and here sat a little present with a tag that said from Santa, it was a roll of film (back before digital).  I knew immediately who Santa was because he was always on my case about taking photos of him. I smiled and smiled. That was approximately 20 years ago and I still have such fond memories of that present.  His way of saying Merry Christmas and I may gripe but I love you so snap a way.  I think of this often when I take photos of people now that I get to do it full time with a digital that I can take as many as I want.

One year my ex was in the police academy and would not be home until a couple of days before Christmas and we were really short on money that year. The kids spent hours and hours and nights and nights making snowflakes out of paper and making a huge cranberry and popcorn string. The would watch TV and work on that string and then take it to the freezer where we had a big box and tie it on the end of the string. We had popcorn and cranberry strings on the street and all around the living room and they were so proud when dad came home and opened the door.

Every year at Christmas we would buy the kids, and I got one too, a nightgown and a new board game to play.  On Christmas Eve we would have our Christmas dinner where we had all of Christmas day free to play and eat left overs. After supper we would open our present knowing we would get a nightie but wondering what it looked like. We would go put them on and come back in to open our other present, the game. Then we would (except my ex, he hated games.) set around the table eating our cookies we made and playing our new game.  Then Christmas morning breakfast was in your sock with some fun things to play with. Then came the tree time and they would draw for who got to be Santa and they would start handing out the gifts one at a time and watching the person open it. You had to make Santa get a present for themselves because every year they always wanted to get the ones they got for others first.  When someone got clothes they would run try them on right then and model them. If you got a toy like the year we got Nintendo we stopped and hooked it up and everyone played a game.  It took us most of the day to get our few presents opened but boy did we have fun and family time.

One year we were super broke and I called all the kids in and told them I was sorry but Christmas was going to be really short this year as we were really broke and just could not afford it.  There little faces fell and my heart broke. My heart broke but they mended it so fast and made it one of my proudest Christmases ever.  One looked up with tears in her eyes and said "mama can we still play an old game since we can't afford a new one?"  I said of course, we will still have game time but just not with a new game. Her little eyes turned to joy and a big smile.  They one said "can we still bake one batch of cookies. I said yes and a big smile lit her face.  One said can we put on our PJ's even if they are old to hang out with?  I said Yes.  One said do you think we could make a popcorn string since we have popcorn without the cranberries and make some snowflakes out of old paper?..I said Yes of course but we can afford a bag of cranberries.  One looked at me with a puzzled look on their face and said "then what are we not having for Christmas?"  I was one proud mom for sure and of course we got them each a couple cheap little presents and they got from their grandmas and it was a wonderful Christmas.

I really thing we spend way to much money and worry spending it on our loved ones when what it boils down to is spending time with family, laughing, hugging is something that money can't buy.  Anyone can spend 5 minutes buying you something but it takes real love to make something that takes time or spending time with people.  Yep time is the best present anyone could have and when someone makes me something my heart swells up as I know they spent some of that precious time that they will never get back just for me because they cared. 

I have tons more of Christmas stories of fun and love as they abound in my family and to this day I am so proud of my gals and they are some of the most giving caring people I know.

Thanksgiving memory

We had a huge country kitchen on the farm with a big wood stove at one end of it and a huge table.

My family loved Thanksgiving and since we did not have any relatives anywhere near us the Miller family was our family and sometimes the Millards.  The Millers had two boys, one my brothers age and one 2 years ahead of them and then one girl who was 4 years ahead of me that I adored like a sister.

Thanks giving was a time of games for all.  The adults would play pinochle after the dishes were done and us kids would find all kinds of stuff to get into.  One game that always seems like we ended up playing was Monopoly and each of us had our own little game piece that no one dared to take.

Olives became a tradition then as we would steal olives to take into the other room every chance we got.  It continued right through the grand kids.

The kids would steal olives and dad would yell at us when he caught us that no more or we would not have any left for dinner.  The grand kids would steal them and stick one on each finger eating away. He again would say "no more, save some for dinner".  Isn't it funny how we never ran out of olives?  He always had cans of them hid just for this reason and no matter how many they stole he had more but the game of trying to catch them became a Thanksgiving game in itself.  Did Grandpa catch you?

What fun memories of Thanksgiving on the farm.

Losing things

As we get older our memory gets worse and worse.  I lost my cell phone last night. I had not been out of the house. I checked the living room, the computer room, the kitchen and yes even the bathroom  and could not find it.

I finally gave up and called it and went again to each room with nothing. I thought, oh great now the battery is dead and I am never going to find that thing.

My mom came out of her bedroom and said "what is that funny noise I keep hearing?"  I said "I don't know what does it sound like?"

She made some funny noises and I said "Did you by chance take my cell phone to your bedroom when you went to bed.  She said "I don't think so".

We looked in her bedroom and you guessed it, there was my cell phone laying on her night stand just ringing away.

Then today I could not find my baking pan to make cornbread....Guess where I found it?  Nope, not in her bedroom but in the freezer full of leftovers all covered up and ready to freeze.

Everyday is a good day for hide and seek, got any ideas where to look for the butter dish??  lol

Disrespect of our country and people.

It is always hard on the loved ones that are left behind when our soldiers head overseas or even to disasters within our own shores. They keep the home fires burning and handle all the problems by themselves. We all think of the soldiers but we need to remember that the loved ones also give and serve our country where our soldiers can go to war.  I can not even imagine how World War I and the wars that followed the heartache that the families went through waiting for a letter that might be months behind. The fear, the loneliness and the flat our terror. I know my mom got scared as she heard on the news that the boat my dad was on was blown up. She had to wait to see if he was one of the survivors. As it turned out he had transferred to another boat before the incident.

Now thank God we have email and news that is up to date but it also comes with its terror as you watch it happen in live news knowing your loved one is out there. Then if you don't get an email right away the terror intensifies. There is no era that war is easy on. It is a terrible price we pay for our freedom and we owe every person who serves and all their loved ones a great big thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

 My daughter takes her grandmother to the cemetery to clean grandpa's grave and put fresh flowers out. It means so much to my mom and she says she is comforted knowing that someday she will lay beside him. One of her fears in the war was that he would not come home or he would be killed and they would not be buried together.  They were the greatest generation and went through so much but they are a tough group of people to this day.

   I am so glad my dad made it home to have me. He did not ever want to leave his family again and he turned down an offer to play professional baseball because he did not want to leave his family. Family was the most important thing in the world to the soldiers that came home from World War II and I am sure from any other war.  The things they had to do to protect us left them haunted for the rest of their lives. I don't think anyone goes to war and comes home unchanged. I know mom said dad came home a different person then when he left. He was never as carefree and happy as he was before the war.

God bless our tough older generation and what they went through to make this country what it is and now my heart cries when I see how people disrespect it today.  People are so self centered and uncaring for others. Just this weekend someone broke into a rural fire department and took their live saving equipment even the heart monitor.  How can someone do this?  How would you feel if you were now 50 miles from help because someone stole the equipment of the local fire department had to help you.

Old age is not for the weak

Each day brings new challenges to taking care of our elderly parents.  We have to set down and remember what they put up with us as kids but you know what the most important thing is??  Love and humor. You have to see the humor.  That is something we were taught in emergency services. What you have to deal with is rough and if you can't find humor you will go insane. I think the same happens with our elderly parents.

I have a friend that got up in the morning and went into her bathroom and nothing remained except a hole in the floor. Her dad had got up in the middle of the night and decided it was taking up to much room because you could just pee in the hole. He has dementia really bad so he took of the toilet and threw it out in the yard.  The story she told of the incident had me rolling  on the floor laughing with tears running down my cheeks.  He manages to do stuff all the time and she deals with it with making it into a funny story.

I am a president of a board and we were having a meeting. Mom was feeling tired and shaky so I asked her if she wanted someone to come set with her. She said "no" I just overdid it and feeling kind of tired and weak. I will be fine, I will just set here.

I told her my daughter was home and had her phone if she needed anything she could be here in just a couple of minutes.  I said just take it easy until I get home and don't be up running around. I meant take it easy and not be up running around working cleaning house, doing laundry etc.

I went to my meeting and just as we are getting ready to discuss an important item on the agenda my phone rings and it shows home. My heart stops, I grab the phone and say "what is wrong?"  Mom says nothing I was just wondering how much longer you were going to be.  I said probably about an hour, why?  What do you need?  She says "I need to go to the bathroom and I am not suppose to get up."  I said yes you can, I just meant don't be up working. She says "does that mean I can get something to eat while I am up?"

I just shook my head. I really need to learn how to phrase things better. The guy next to me said "is everything ok?"  What did she need?"...I said she wanted to go to the bathroom and get something to eat.  He started laughing and said he was going to turn me in for elder abuse...

Then I get home and all the dogs are in the house...Now that I did say...Don't let the dogs in the house they might trip you, it is a sunny day and they can stay outside. I don't care if they get in a fight or what, they can just stay out there"

Now she won't get up to go to the bathroom when I say don't get up and run around but when I specially say don't let the dogs in she does....

The joys of caring for the elderly but I will tell you something. I am so glad every day that I get that chore. It is such a joy and I love having my mom around even if she is 91. She is fantastic and one of the biggest joys in my life.  One of my friends said I had a lot of patience but I don't and that is not what is needed, it is seeing the humor in it and loving her.

Then today she wanted to go to the doctor. I said ok, get ready and we will go up there. I asked her what is wrong that she wanted to go to the doctor as it scared me as I usually have to force her to go to the doctor.  She said "I am out of pills". I said we don't have to go to the doctor for that, we go to the drug store.  She said "I know but it is expired and I have to get new ones".  She was just at the doctor last month and she said just have the drug store call when it expires.  Off to the drug store we went and got her pills. I asked her if she needed to go to the doctor for anything else and asked her how she was feeling and she said "I don't know, I don't remember why I wanted to go so I must not need to go now".

Boy I think she is getting even with me for everything I did to her as a child and I have told you some of those stories...I can't wait to get even with my kids and it is getting closer every day. It is so frustrating when you forget things. I see someone and I know I have gone to lunch with them, I know their sense of humor, I remember their kids and even the kids name and for the life of me can't think of their name. It is funny how our old brains work sometimes and then later pop, there is their name easy as can be to remember.

Growing old is not for the weak but then neither is raising kids especially teenagers. Love your parents because after they are gone you would love to be able to care for them. I wish every day for 24 years that I also had my dad here to care for too.

Taking care of your elderly parent

Ok, I will write this again. Would you believe I was all done except one sentence and hit the wrong button and erased the whole thing. Maybe I should be writing about taking care of your elderly parent while you are elderly...

Two of the hardest things for the elderly to do is:

#1.  Giving up their drivers license. I can so understand this as that is the one birthday I just couldn't wait for it to arrive where I could get my drivers license and to this day remains one of my most cherished possessions.

The elderly don't have to quit driving because they can't drive but because they can no longer multi task fast enough. If they could just drive slowly to the grocery store and home there would be no problem. But no, that is not what happens, people tailgate them, honk their horns, give them dirty looks and pass dangerously because in this rush, rush world no one wants to wait.  People pull out in front of them and they can't react fast enough. The idea??  Not that we need to learn patience and remember when they taught us to drive and we weren't so good either but they patiently kept at it and we learned to drive.  No people have no patience for anyone that can't do things as fast as they want, that includes checkers in the grocery store, waitresses, everything has to move at 100 miles per hour or people become rude.

#2 Having to wear hearing aids.  This one I fail to understand as I would think they would want to hear but not they swear they can hear and that is not what you said. I had a friend that said that is the one thing she is not going to do to her kids, she is getting a hearing aid and she is wearing it. I say, lets wait and see when you get that age as I don't know one person that does not fight this with every excuse they can think of.  I have to remind myself over and over and over again as this is one of my downfalls when she can's hear me because she won't wear her hearing aid that at one time in my life she could not understand me and she remained patient and learned to understand what I needed.  Again this is a to fast world and we don't' have the time to explain over and over and over, but wait, didn't they do that with us when we were kids?

Part of the problem with taking care of elderly parents is the role shift from parent to child again and they are still the parent.  They don't want to follow rules but then neither did I when I was small and we need to remind ourselves of that.

We need to be patient with the fact that their hands become arthritic and they drop things a lot, kind of like when they had to pick our toy up off the floor 50 times as we could not hang onto it. The other day I was exhausted and so tired my eyes burned and I came home and she dropped a whole great big bowl of stew all over the floor.  I know I rolled by eyes and thought why didn't you tell me you wanted a bowl that heavy out of the frig?  Then I remembered the night she came home from work exhausted beyond exhausted and still had to fix supper only to walk through the door and find out that I had decided to bake a cake.  I had chocolate cake all over the cupboard, the wall and the floor as I had lifted the mixer up before it had been shut off. I had dirty dishes everywhere. Instead of killing me she managed to say "thanks for the cake".  I can still see the look on her face and it was not a thanks for the cake look, it was  a verge of tears look.

I remember once back in the day that everything had to be ironed and me and my friends had taken all the clothes out of the dresser and closet to hide in for hide and seek.  That time she was not patient she wanted to kill and I must admire her that she did not hit any of us but we learned a hard lesson and had to wash and iron everything in my room, took us 3 days before they could go home. We never played in the clothes again but I am sure she had to re-iron everything we had ironed and remember this woman farmed and worked full time.

When you come home and she has decided to paint the bathroom and then ran out of energy and had to quit and you have to finish when you had other plans remember back to the day that you and your friend decided to wax the floor with the good ole Areo wax that if you put on heavy turns yellow. Well we had watched TV and the floors looked like they had 1/2 " of wax on them so we decided to surprise mom and wax outs. Well mom worked at a grocery store and we were poor so she bought things on sale so their was two gallons of aero wax in the closet and we put all of it on our white floor and then went and rode our horses and came home just in time to get our socks on like she let us and slide around the floor polishing it. We opened up the door and our mouths flew open and tears in our eyes at the yellow smeared mess that once was a white floor. When she got home that time we were on our hands and knees with scrub brushes and suds up to our wrists crying and washing.  Once again instead of killing us because she felt so sorry for us she ran us outside and she cleaned up that awful mess.

When I was in the hospital with my twins I had to stay a week. Right next to our area was the nursing home and on Sunday this little old lady came out with her chair and sit down in the hall. She had her pretty dress on inside out, she had makeup on but it was not a good job. She had fixed her hair pretty, or tried to and she just sit there looking so sad and every time someone would walk down the hall she would smile and then the sad look was back and her head would drop and she would sit some more. I asked the nurse about her as she looked so sad. She said the lady gets dressed up every Sunday and waits for her family to come and they never do. She said they come either for her birthday or Christmas and it is a duty time and you can tell they just want gone and only stay about 10 minutes. I asked how far away they lived and she said all 6 of them live in the county and some actually live right in town but they are to busy to come.  I swore on that day that my parents would never be neglected like that ever. Sometimes circumstances make it where you have to put them in a nursing home but that doesn't mean you have to forget them. They are your parents and they never left you and believe me raising you they had many hard times but they always took time for you. Take time for them. How long does it take to make a phone call every night just to say "just wanted to say goodnight mom and to tell you I love you". Good morning mom just calling to say have a great day.  How long does it take to spend an hour a week with her?  How about stopping on your way home just to say hi and spend 5 or 10 minutes with them?  How long?  You have been their whole world since the day your were born and they have never forgot that you are a part of them.

Appreciate every day you have with your parents.  I lost my dad.24 years ago and the biggest regret I have is that I did not quit my job and spend more time with him and now he is gone and I can't. Nothing is more important then the ones we love especially our parents who gave us life, who raised us in a time money was hard to find and yet they did not put us away somewhere, they did not give up on us, they loved us through it all.

I dread the day that my mom does not challenge my temper, my time and my patience because that will be one of the saddest days of my life but this time I was smart enough to spend as much time with my mom as possible. I will not look back with regret again and say I wish I had spent more time with them.

4H and the eldery

One of the ways to stay active in having a 4H club. You do so much for the kids and leaders in all things are needed. They do cooking, sewing, animals, guns, photography, gymkhana, showmanship, cooking. Do you have a special interest you would like to share with some kids. Any skill you have call and see if they are needed.  

Nothing keeps you young like a child. You can be a teacher and guide the kids to a better life teaching them responsibility. You need two of you to have a club but sometimes the 4H office can help find you a partner.  They don't have to have your skills just help watch kids.  They even have clover buds for the ones to young to be in 4H.

Do you like to bake?  Do you like to garden?  Sew? hike?  read?



Another way to stay active with your mind and body is to volunteer at the hospital or one of the nursing homes. It can be as simple as reading to a patient or it can be delivering books and picking them up from the library to just a simple visit.  Many of these people do not have anyone to come see them so just having someone care enough to say "hi" means a lot to them.

Do you have a skill you would think would be fun to do at the senior citizens building?

4H loves almost anything that helps the kids. Are you good at teaching manners to dogs? Are you good with makeup?  hair?  braiding? Stop and think about what you like to do from quilting to cooking to camping skills and call the 4H office and find out how to go about it.

Jon Gandy or Jill Eveland at 541-475-7107


Have a great day.