CHRISTMAS 2020 WAS ONE OF A KIND BUT WE SURVIVED

Just a short post today.

George and I went to church on Christmas Eve and I felt very lucky that our church was allowed to be open. I sang solo without music because of Covid and everything went well.

All the preparations for Christmas dinner have been just like when the family was here. I baked tourtieres (meat pies) fruit cakes, cranberry cookies, pecan snowballs. A small turkey, dressing, mashed garlic potatoes with sour cream,  broccoli, carrots, and gravy. Broken glass torte for dessert and wine.

I shared some of the food with the family, delivered gifts, before dinner, and  George and I sat down to fill our bellies. After dinner, we went to work on a nice puzzle that Jackie, my daughter gave us.  It was a 500 pieces puzzle and George was glad because he could find the pieces easier. It was a nice way to wound down.

It was a really fun puzzle to do and pretty easy. 

I have taken photos of some of my decorations with my cell phone before Christmas but when I came to upload them on my computer, the cell phone did some binging sounds and the device did not want to show on my computer. I may need to do some updating on my computer.  It's the least of my worries right now. 

The tree and decorations will stay up till Epiphany at the feast of the Three Kings. 

Today I vacuum my bedroom and put everything in order and, ordered my garden seeds from Veseys Seeds from PEI. Of course, I wanted to buy more seeds but realized that I'll never be able to manage it all and pared down my order. Last year, I did not order seeds as I had no soil to plant them in because all the plant nurseries were closed to the public because of Covid. I bought some plants that were mislabeled and instead of having 12 broccoli plants I had 12 kale plants. There was something else that was mislabeled and I was very disappointed. 

I hope that you had a lovely Christmas but I know at least three families who had either were alone for Christmas because of losing a loved one, and one was ill and the other is in palliative care. My heart went out to them. Wishing everyone a better year for 2021.

Thanks for visiting and leaving a comment.

THE TREE IS UP

I finally decided to put up the tree. It feels different this year as we won't have any visitors but this is something we might have to get used to.  One thing I've noticed as I made progress in decorating the tree, I had mixed feelings as I was handling all the decorations that my kids gave me over the years. There are some from many countries from far away places and some they bought with their own money when they were in school. Many are collectors' items now.  It was bittersweet as I hung a little pair of ceramic baby booties with the birth date and name of Nicole written in gold. After Nicole passed away, those little booties came back home all the way from Scotland.

 Lauren my dear blogger friend has been checking to see how I was doing with decorating my tree. It took me longer than usual to put the darn bead garland on. It kept slipping and my shoulder kept getting sore and tired from holding my arms up. I'm glad I had some office work to do so I could take a break. Thanks to Lauren, I'm glad I persevered and finally finished decorating the tree. 

This is before I got the ornaments on.  The angel was given to me by my first little granddaughter Jordyn when she was just a wee little girl. 

Not a good photo but you get the picture. I have fewer ornaments than the last time I decorated the tree, but still, it took me a long time hanging each one of them.  I gave all my little teddy bears to my little great-granddaughter. She filled a whole big grocery bag with the teddy bears and proudly took them home. It was just too cute.

This a gift from Christine that I got in 2000, 20 years ago.  

One of my large poinsettia. It's starting to turn red. It's so big. This is a table that sits four people.  Some of the large leaves are falling off as there are many little new leaves and branches growing. It's really too big and I have two others like that. You can't even see the top but I'm glad for the color.

I have some other decorations put up but it will be for another time. This evening George and decided that we will get a turkey for Christmas even though it's just the two of us. We have to stay positive, it's better that way. I can give the other half to my son Vaughan.

Stay safe and well everyone and thanks for leaving a comment.

Hugs, Julia

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