Almost Christmas

Four more days.... and each day flies by more quickly than the day before.  We had horribly cold weather after our Christmas party last weekend. Temperatures in the 30s and 40s are not normal for this part of the state, and when it gets that cold, people get cranky. Especially me.  I don't like to be cold, and I have to wonder how I managed the winter weather all those years up north. Today the sun is shining and the temperatures should be around 70 degrees or so. Much nicer. Much warmer. Much more civilized.                                                                                                                                    

We took Savannah for a walk up the road this morning and she was positively smiling when she looked at us. She does that at times... looks at us while she's walking to make sure we're still there. We took Savannah to the vet yesterday to have her nails clipped... they took her into one of the back rooms and left us in the waiting room. I imagine that without us in the room with her, she didn't fidget as much. They also weighed her... 73 pounds. The vet suggested that she could eat less to lose a few pounds. Actually, I already feed Savannah less food than she's supposed to get because she doesn't walk much. Those long walks up and down the road don't happen every day with Savannah. I walk her around the backyard, in order to stay away from the road and the dippity-do neighbor across the road whose latest dog wanders off her property almost daily. And whatever loud noises that occur around here are most likely from that neighbor's property.... trucks and off-the-road vehicles and gun shots... you name it, those people are likely to be the cause... so I try and keep Savannah away from idiots and stupid people. But it's almost Christmas. I will try and be charitable. Maybe they're not idiots over there on the other side of the road. But they certainly are disrespectful and discourteous. Sorry, Santa... but it's hard for me to give those people a break.

Savannah is still very much aware of her 'lost' days, in my opinion. When she heard those gun shots from across the road last week, she ran to me and plopped herself down practically on top of my feet. When the shots didn't quit, she started to shake so I put the 'Thunder-Jacket' on her and that seemed to settle her down some. I wish I could sound-proof the house (the world!) for this poor dog, but that's impossible. The best thing we can do is just be here for her, and I always hope that nothing stupid happens across the road when we're not at home.

I've been reading Facebook stories about lost, abandoned and neglected dogs... very sad, to think that people can treat their pets as if they're pieces of furniture or yard-art, devoid of feelings and needs. And those are the pet-owners who don't spay/neuter their pets and before long there are more pets in need of homes and people who will love them. I look at the sad faces of homeless dogs and cats and I just want to save them all. An impossible task, to say the least. I really need to just stop looking at the photographs of dogs and cats who need to find their "fur-ever" homes.

I have watched "It's a Wonderful Life" and, for the thousandth time, cried over the ending of that movie. The first time I saw that movie, I was about 8 or 9 and watching it on The Late Show with my Aunt Dolly... it was always one of her favorite Christmas movies... she loves Jimmy Stewart. Aunt Dolly is 103 now and I'm wondering if she's still watching all the old movies. My aunt's health is fine, but her hearing isn't quite as good as it could be... very hard to talk to her over the phone because she can barely hear, and sometimes her answers don't quite match up to the questions I've asked her. It's best just to let it go and not ask her the same question again... she knows that her hearing is bad and there's no sense in calling undue attention to it.

Christmas. Almost Christmas. There was a Christmas Eve decades ago when I was in the first or second grade... my dad had gotten a Santa suit and I saw him walking out of our front door and going up the street towards the neighbors. I knew it was my dad... he had a distinctive walk, and after all, he was walking on the sidewalk and there wasn't a sleigh or reindeer in sight. He was carrying an old school bell in his hand and ringing that bell as he walked along our street. I don't know if I was excited to see Santa walking down our street or maybe I was excited because I believed that my dad was Santa!  At that age, I would have truly believed that my dad could be the real Santa. My bedroom in that big old house so many years ago had a balcony... I sat there by the door waiting for 'Santa' to come home, but I fell asleep on the floor and when my dad picked me up to put me back into the bed I told him that Santa had walked down the block ringing a bell.

"Are you sure it was Santa? I didn't see any reindeer in the yard," my dad said.
I told daddy that I didn't see a sleigh, either... that Santa was walking.
"Well, maybe Santa was going up to Atlantic Avenue to catch the bus," said my father.

I laugh at that now... and it also makes me sad. My dad was a bus driver for NYC... he drove a bus for nearly 35 years. At Christmas time, he had a set of small bells... and he'd ring those bells and say "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!" to the passengers as they got off the bus. Daddy had 'regular' passengers who would wait for his bus every day, by-passing other buses because they'd rather ride with my father.

My dad died in 2008. I miss him. I miss his voice. I miss hearing him sing old Italian songs, and Disney's "When You Wish Upon A Star." I miss talking to him on the phone. I miss that time when I was a little kid and thought my dad was Santa. It seems like yesterday. It seems like two minutes ago. It seems like a life-time...

Christmas Party Day + One...

Last night was our annual Christmas party.... and today is a slow-motion day. Tables and chairs have to get back into their places, carpets have to be vacuumed, grab-bag gifts that weren't chosen get put away for next year's party.  All of that is done now, and then some.  What takes four weeks' worth of planning and arranging takes just a day to re-arrange into a sense of normalcy. If you walked into my house right now, you wouldn't know we had 20 people here last night. And when I think of the parties back in Clear Lake when we had double that amount, I wonder how I did it all.

As always, the grab-bag gifts were a hit. I've learned that the best choices for the men's gifts have to do with food, tools, or sports.  The ladies like anything Christmas-y or sparkly, which means they're easier to shop for. I will have to get creative next December and put together more gift-bags for the men filled with snacks, treats, anything food-related. For now, the food gifts that didn't get chosen last night are in my pantry and my husband can snack on them when he's watching ballgames on television.

Our cold weather is history, with today's temperatures in the 70s... so much nicer than the 40-degree weather we had just before the party. We lucked out last week and didn't get a hard freeze, and I have to say that I don't miss all that snow and sleet that's up in the northeast.

The night before our party, there were two cats on our porch.... they seemed to be a mother cat and her 6- or 7-month-old kitten.  The younger one followed the adult cat all over the yard, and even though they were both trusting and friendly, it was the little one who purred by my feet and let me pick him up and hold him. And there I was, thinking of Christmas-y names for that little gray cat.... Jingles, Holly, Elf-Kitty, Santa-Cat..... and I really considered taking him into the house and seeing if he/she and Sweet Pea would get along.  But how do you take a young kitten away from its mother.... and I didn't want to take both of them.  So I fed them on the porch, and thought for sure they would be waiting for breakfast yesterday morning.  But not a sign of them... and they weren't out there yesterday afternoon or last night either.  I actually walked out on the back porch three times during the party to call "Kitty-Kitty-Kitty" -- to which they had both come running the night before.

I constantly say 'No more cats... no more pets....'  but somehow just the sight of a homeless cat outside makes me start thinking up names. As my husband says... we never have to go and look for cats... somehow they just always find us.

So... another Christmas party come and gone. My husband's birthday is coming up this week, and then Christmas Eve and Day follows shortly thereafter. Another Christmas... another year.... each one going by too quickly.

Rain and more rain...

Our 80-degree days are history, and I surely do miss the sun and the warmth.  We're at about 50 degrees as I type, with the weather wizards promising freezing temperatures by the end of this week. Not exactly my favorite kind of forecast.

The little town we live in has an annual Christmas parade and we enjoy going downtown and sitting on the steps of the courthouse to watch the floats and the kids, the horses and long-horns, and everyone just has fun and gets into the Christmas spirit. Because of the weather this weekend, the parade was cancelled. We don't know if they will be able to re-schedule it, and I don't think they will. With each week now, everyone gets busier as they get ready to celebrate Christmas Eve and Day. This is a very "Merry Christmas" type of town... you don't often hear "Happy Holidays" on our downtown streets.

We're having our Christmas party next weekend, and I'm hoping the frigid weather that's expected won't put a damper on the party. We're having a Christmas Sweater Party, like we did last year... we asked everyone invited to wear some sort of Ugly/Pretty/Festive/Crazy/Creative Christmas Sweater/Shirt/Blouse. For last year's party, we had the air-conditioning on because it was so warm outside (my kind of winter) but this year the heat will have to be on for sure, unless those cold temperatures coming in from Alaska and Canada go elsewhere. (One can hope.)

Rather than getting our big Christmas tree on the day after Thanksgiving, we waited a week and went shopping yesterday for the real tree. We went to every store selling real trees in this town, and came home with nothing. The trees at Home Depot were mostly tossed on the ground, with lots of brown spots and bare branches on nearly all of the trees. Lowe's wasn't any better, although their trees were carefully displayed. Walmart had trees, but most were too skinny, with not enough room for my husband's vintage Christmas lights and our ever-growing collection of ornaments.

We went out again today... driving up to College Station. Home Depot was our first stop, and we didn't have to look elsewhere. They had lots of trees in all sizes, neatly displayed, and we found a tree that will reach up to the ceiling once we put Roy Rogers' star at the top. (The actual star that the Rogers family used for their own tree back in the day.... it's a replica of the huge gold star that was permanently displayed over Roy and Dale's ranch.)

This weekend had been set aside for tree-trimming, but we didn't get the tree till this afternoon. So my husband will set up the tree and put the lights on tomorrow, and then I will do the ornaments... we should be finished by Tuesday evening.  I have a schedule that I stick to during the week of our parties, and we're not quite adhering to it at this point. Somehow, everything gets done. (The little elves come out after midnight...)

This will be Savannah's second Christmas. From her doggie-bed in the corner of the breakfast room, she will be able to see the big tree through the glass of the doors leading into the dining room. Savannah was very good with the real tree last year... giving it a sniff here and there but not touching the ornaments or the bubble-lights.  She has already walked around the living room and the dining room, inspecting all the little trees and the decorations arranged around those rooms... sniffing some of the Santas, staring at a few of the table-top trees, but not touching a thing. Not a thing. What a great dog.

While we were in College Station today, we went into PetSmart to look at collars and to buy a big bag of dog food. They had so many Christmas outfits for dogs, for tiny little puppies and for larger breeds like Savannah. I picked up a Santa suit that would have fit Savannah, but then put it back. I wasn't sure if Savannah would wear it and keep it on all night during the party, and she's probably more comfortable in just her long-haired glory anyway. I truly love this dog. Savannah trusted me when she trusted no one else, and I will never forget that.

December goes by so quickly. We're just at the beginning here, but I know that the next few weeks will just disappear.  My husband came home with a small box of Whitman's Chocolates the other night and I nearly burst into tears. Whitman's was always my dad's favorite, and never a holiday went by without a box of Whitman's on my grandmother's dining room table. As always, when the family got together for Christmas, my dad and my Uncle Mino would have their yearly discussion as to which chocolate was the best--- Whitman's or Russell Stover's (my uncle's favorite).  I can see them both now with thin fruit knives... each one taking a selection from their respective boxes of chocolates and slicing through each to compare the insides. ("You call that caramel, Mino? Just look at the Whitman's here!")

Life goes by so quickly. And so much of it has disappeared. All that's left are the memories. And the occasional box of Whitman's.