I Miss You All

Compared to last week, this weekend is pretty quiet. I put a wreath on the door and electric candles in the window. I'm still having trouble shopping for Christmas without buying things for myself. I think the problem is I haven't really shopped at all except for missionary stuff for Alex.

I hope everyone got Alex's email. Maybe Travis could forward it to Agata. He is far far away, and enjoying it. It is a little overwhelming that he is in Thailand, but I'm glad he is finally there.

It's really cold here, and we are not enjoying it. Travis, especially in his attempts to see the sun come up and set while waiting for Traxx trains, is not enjoying it. But we are surviving. I have spent the last week feeling very grateful that I am not in the van driving through snow and on ice. I wasn't scared, but now I'm sort of traumatized by it.

What's up with Poland????? 60 degrees??? Is that typical??? I keep having to reorganize my few impressions of Eastern Europe.

When you post your Christmas wish list, maybe you could post your favorite food or tradition or memory of Christmas. Not to distract you from the main purpose, but each year I like to think of what makes Christmas special for me. We have so much. It's almost a pity. I read a book for Book Club called "Little Britches". They had good Christmases. But a pan of fudge and an orange and a new book were very special gifts. One of my favorite Christmases was when Tyler and Danny were very little and we were very broke. We bought them exactly the toys they had asked for and made a promise not to buy anything for each other. Of course we did, but our gifts were small and fun. We had learned that the boys were overwhelmed by too many things, so we didn't worry about needing to have more. Everyone was happy. Then the neighbors came over in our new neighborhood (this isn't that great of a memory). Apparently they travelled from house to house to "see what Santa had brought everyone." We were stunned. We quickly showed them the kids' toys (all three) them got them out of there as fast as we could. We followed them to their house to see what Santa had delivered (a display was set up in each room), then went back home and tried to regroup the best we could. Even my parents didn't do that to us. They were more excited about seeing the kids and giving them presents than worried about what we had given each other.

Well, that was cheery.

Love, Mom