My Christmas was okay, first the good parts, my daughter was feeling better and was here with me instead of being at her dad’s. I spoke to my family on the phone and all is well with them, and I had an hour long conversation with my son which was really nice, we hardly ever talk for that long on the phone. And my husband cooked a wonderful meal.

Now the annoying parts, when I woke up in the morning my husband informed me that we had no water. We have a well and the pump had overheated and shut down. There are no plumbers available on Christmas and no hardware stores open, so the situation looked bleak. Luckily my husband found that the problem was with the water filter, so he disconnected it when the pump cooled down he turned it back on and it worked.

Then we had a major storm, heavy winds and rain, but luckily our power did not go out as it often does. There were severe tornados about 2 hours north of here and people lost their homes on Christmas day, that’s just so sad.

We were having dinner at 4:00, my husband’s daughter and her 10 year old daughter came over at around 3:30, I had a family Christmas movie on the television and her cell phone began to ring playing a loud obnoxious song. She looked at it and didn’t want to talk to the person who was calling and so it kept ringing about 5 times.

At 4:00 my telephone rang the same time as the doorbell did, I took the phone into the bedroom to talk to my daughter, about 10 minutes later I went back into the living room where my husband’s son and his girlfriend, and the daughter and her daughter were sitting and I starting talking to them, apologizing for being on the phone and they all just ignored me, and the son turned up the volume on the TV. He had changed the channel and they were watching a movie.

So I just ignored them and went into the kitchen to help my husband. We have a small dinning room table so we had the food laid out in the kitchen on the counter so that everyone could make a plate in there and bring in to the dinning room table. Since I was already in the kitchen, I was the first one to make a plate and sit down at the dinning room table. So then the daughter, son and girlfriend all make their plates and walk right past me and go into the living room back to their movie.

The nine year old, my daughter and my husband sat with me, and we ate while the TV was blaring the “F” word.

In the past I have told the daughter that I did not allow my daughter to watch R rated movies and I have asked her to change the channel when she put one on over here, but yesterday I did not want to cause a fuss. Luckily they left right after the movie.

As usual they came over empty handed, my husband gets a bonus every year and gives them each $200 dollars the week before Christmas so they can do their shopping, yet they don’t buy anything for us. Not even a Christmas card, candy cane or cookie. They are not children they are 29, and 27 years old, they didn’t even say Merry Christmas, they just ate a free meal and left.

I hope they enjoyed it because I am sick of it and we are not doing it next year, if it takes me all year I will think of some way to get out of it. Maybe I’ll go up north to spend a real Christmas with my family next year.

I hope all my Blogstream friends are enjoying the holidays.

Yesterday my daughter and I went to see The Lion King. It was an amazing production, the costumes and the movements of the people playing animals were wonderful and so was the music. There were 2 very talented 10 year old children in the show as well.

My daughter said that it was the best Christmas present she ever got.

Today she is not feeling well, she wanted to go over to her dad's anyway, but I said no. I think she was actually relieved, she doesn't like to disappoint him, but she needs to stay home in bed where I can take care of her.

My husband will be cooking a seafood dinner tonight, I can't wait.



Youngest daughter, 1991

Ever notice how at this time of year the days go by so quickly? So different then when I was a kid and counted down the days until Christmas, it seemed like Christmas took forever to get here.

Tomorrow starts my daughter’s vacation, she has been so busy with school, and chatting online with her boyfriend that I haven’t been spending much time with her. So I am looking forward to having her home with me. We are going to do some cooking and baking while listening to Christmas Carols and work on that damn chemistry class she’s taking online.

My older 2 children, with all the gifts under the tree are playing in a cardboard box, at least my son is excited

Long before the advent of Christianity, plants and trees that remained green all year had a special meaning for people in the winter. Just as people today decorate their homes during the festive season with pine, spruce, and fir trees, ancient peoples hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows. In many countries it was believed that evergreens would keep away witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness.

In the Northern hemisphere, the shortest day and longest night of the year falls on December 21 or December 22 and is called the winter solstice. Many ancient people believed that the sun was a god and that winter came every year because the sun god had become sick and weak. They celebrated the solstice because it meant that at last the sun god would begin to get well. Evergreen boughs reminded them of all the green plants that would grow again when the sun god was strong and summer would return.

The Egyptians were part of a long line of cultures that treasured and worshipped evergreens. When the winter solstice arrive, they brought green date palm leaves into their homes to symbolize life's triumph over death.

Early Romans marked the solstice with a feast called the Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The Romans knew that the solstice meant that soon farms and orchards would be green and fruitful. To mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs. In Northern Europe the Druids, the priests of the ancient Celts, also decorated their temples with evergreen boughs as a symbol of everlasting life. The fierce Vikings in Scandinavia thought that evergreens were the special plant of the sun god, Balder.

Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition as we now know it in the 16th century when devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes.

Most 19th-century Americans found Christmas trees an oddity. The first record of one being on display was in the 1830s by the German settlers of Pennsylvania, although trees had been a tradition in many German homes much earlier. The Pennsylvania German settlements had community trees as early as 1747. But, as late as the 1840s Christmas trees were seen as pagan symbols and not accepted by most Americans.

It is not surprising that, like many other festive Christmas customs, the tree was adopted so late in America. To the New England Puritans, Christmas was sacred. The pilgrims's second governor, William Bradford, wrote that he tried hard to stamp out "pagan mockery" of the observance, penalizing any frivolity. The influential Oliver Cromwell preached against "the heathen traditions" of Christmas carols, decorated trees, and any joyful expression that desecrated "that sacred event." In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law making any observance of December 25 (other than a church service) a penal offense; people were fined for hanging decorations. That stern solemnity continued until the 19th century, when the influx of German and Irish immigrants undermined the Puritan legacy.

In 1846, the popular royals, Queen Victoria and her German Prince, Albert, were sketched in the Illustrated London News standing with their children around a Christmas tree. Unlike the previous royal family, Victoria was very popular with her subjects, and what was done at court immediately became fashionable—not only in Britain, but with fashion-conscious East Coast American Society. The Christmas tree had arrived.

By the 1890s Christmas ornaments were arriving from Germany and Christmas tree popularity was on the rise around the U.S. It was noted that Europeans used small trees about four feet in height, while Americans liked their Christmas trees to reach from floor to ceiling.
The early 20th century saw Americans decorating their trees mainly with homemade ornaments, while the German-American sect continued to use apples, nuts, and marzipan cookies. Popcorn joined in after being dyed bright colors and interlaced with berries and nuts.

Electricity brought about Christmas lights, making it possible for Christmas trees to glow for days on end. With this, Christmas trees began to appear in town squares across the country and having a Christmas tree in the home became an American tradition.
source-The History Channel.