Happy New Year!

Ooops, forgot to add....

There's a message board that I frequent and they post alot of info on all kinds of things for the most part, it's very a very nice board. Awhile back, someone posted a link to a wildlife park in Africa and I love to go take a look there every so often to see what animal is there and what sounds there are. For example, right at this moment, there are zebras. It's a pretty cool site, so check it out!

Quick catch-up!

Well, I hope Santa was good to everyone! Are you still all playing with your toys?

I finally received my Genesis trimmer just before Christmas. Emil ordered that for me May 2005 for Christmas (last year, not this year!) and it came just in time! This is what it is. Then, my poor little photosmart printer died right before our Christmas dinner, so Emil got me a new one. So I was pretty happy with what I got. Our patients gave us the usual See's candies (my dentist loves me!)and the one that surprised us was an old patient that we hadn't seen for a few years or more. He was cured so no longer came to see us. He owns a jewelry store, so every year he would give us a fresh water pearl necklace, bracelet or pin. Well, he popped in and gave us a fresh water pearl choker. Wow, so nice to be remembered!

Our family gathered on Christmas Day at my brother's where we do dinner every year since my mom moved in with him. She has trouble going up and down the stairs, so thought it best for her to stay home. So, anyway at Thanksgiving dinner, we always draw names and I got Emil's. He told me he wanted to tripod and I, of course said ok. Come Christmas Day, no tripod. I told him I had no way to go to the store without him knowing so I how could I get it??????? Fast forward to after dinner and I'm doing Mrs. Claus. The last gift I pass out was to him. He rolled his eyes and smirked. Ha! Got him! What he found out, was that Michael and I went in together for his gift, but Michael was the one to wrap it. Nice job he did, too. Two boxes individually wrapped with duct tape, then wrapped together with the duct tape. Then he used wrapping paper and made it all nice. Took him awhile, but he managed to get it open. We had got him a GPS for the car.

Anyhows, I'm still working on the tag book, and the music will stay a bit longer since I need to look for something to replace it with. These music places have alot of music, but not many of what I want.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Yesterday I finally completed my Christmas tag book. I still have to put pictures in it and we won't be going to be with family until tomorrow, so I think this will be for my brother in Korea. I'll post pictures after they're put in.

Emil started whining :>) about opening presents (he does this every year!) the other night, so I let him open one. I got him an electronic suduko game. He's been playing with it every chance he got. He cracks me up.

Yesterday, we were to have dinner at a friend's. But in the afternoon, I was suddenly sooooooooooooo tired and laid down for a quick nap. Unfortunately, that nap lasted 2 hours. By the time I woke up, I was still feeling groggy and just couldn't walk straight. So I had to pass on dinner and Emil went alone. I'm feeling much better today.

Another mishap. Poor Emil got stabbed by a knife while doing dishes. I told him if we had a dishwasher (not him), he wouldn't have that problem. So he's been walking around with his pinkie pointing straight. Looks perfect if he's having tea!

Anyway, hope everyone's having a great Christmas! Santa's on his way to our homes. To see where he is, look here.

Yowsers! I've been tagged!

Just got back from grocery shopping at Costco so I'm sitting here catching up on my reading on the boards and blogs. I've discovered that I've been tagged by Lilian!

So here goes:

List 5 favorite Christmas songs:

So here's my top choices of the moment and not in any particular order, although The Christmas Canon is up there on the list.

1. Christmas Canon by Trans Siberian Orchestra. I love the video version better than the CD one which is what's playing on my blog. The video version has children singing.

2. The Nutcracker. The whole thing.

3. Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah

4. Linus & Lucy - Vince Guaraldi

5. Little Drummer Boy - take your pick, there's many versions

It's hard to pick 5, since there's many I like.

Who to tag next? Hmmmmm. If you're reading this, consider yourself tagged!!!!

Elf Attack!!!!

Take out your frustrations on the elves. Well, there're picking on Santa, anyway!!!


Here's a game for you!

In response to Emil's comment......

- Get Your Own

Catch up!

We had our club Christmas dinner Sunday and have posted some of the photos. It was pretty nice and everyone there got a photo card of themselves. I love my little photosmart printer! This was a new one, as my other one had died. Nothing like finding that out the day before you need to use it! So Emil went out and got me a new one, since the cost of fixing the old one would have been more expensive anyway. Barbara & Nancy outdid themselves with the decorations and favors, as usual. I forgot to take a picture of the centerpieces candles that Barbara made (8 of them) that was raffled off. After dinner, we all exchanged gifts and that was fun.

I can sort of relax alittle bit now, as we have no more meetings until January 9th. So I need to tackle the things on my to do list. I have to update and print out the flyers for the application packets for our upcoming convention. About 300 sets of 10 flyers. Then Emil's intent letter must go out on January 1st. So I need to print that up, too. I think that's about 100 of them. I still need to finish up some of my last minute gifts that I have to bring to work tomorrow.

Hmmmmmm. Did I say I could relax? Maybe when I'm sleeping........

Christmas Around the World

Check out this site. A list of live videos and webcams all over the world. One interesting one was the Lapland one where it's listed that people from all over come to see Santa here.

Santa Game

Here'sa fun game. Use your arrow keys to tip the reindeer over.

Scrapping, finally!

I'm so glad I was able to do alittle scrapping this year! Time sure does fly and doesn't leave me much time to play! Anyway, here's my friendship page that I exchanged within our message board. I would post the others, but I think they would prefer to post their own.

Then every year I say I'm going to make Christmas cards and will start earlier, like mid-year instead of December like I always seem to do. But, here's 2 I've done so far. Each card got sent to a group, so I think I still need to do 2 more groups. Don't know yet if it would be more of the second card, since that was the quickest to do and seeing that today's already the 12th.....


So if you didn't get one from me, well, it's not because I didn't want to send you one, it's because I ran out of time!
Someone remind me to start earlier next year????????????????????????????

Wow!

I had a great time at the show last night! 3 hours, no intermission. The show started late, as they found out that tickets were sold for the upper boxes so they had to adjust the lighting for the light show and that took alittle time. The only drawback is that if you should be epileptic, this would not be a good show to see. Lots of flashing lights, laser light show, and pyrotechnics towards the end. The music and vocals were fantastic and the keyboard and guitars had fast fingers. They have a new album coming out next year and this is one group I wouldn't mind seeing again!

We got home at midnight and this morning at Starbucks, it was a vente, not grande! So it's been a long day as we also had patients all day.

On another note, I received our friendship page swap today. I just got done looking and drooling over all of the pages! Everyone did a fantastic job! I would like to post them, but I don't think everyone would want them shown. I will post mine, though, when I scan it in.

Trans Siberian Orchestra

We're headed to see them tonight. Should be a great show. One of my favorites is the Christmas Canon. Hope you have windows media player to hear or see them.

The White Envelope

I got this in an email this morning. I've seen this once before, but it certainly bears repeating.



It's just a small white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmastree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked throughthe branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so.

It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas -- oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it -- the overspending, the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma -- the gifts given in desperation because you couldn't think of anything else.

Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties, and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way.

Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior level at
the school he attended. Shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church.

These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler's ears. It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford.

Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn't acknowledge defeat.


Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, "I wish just one of them could have won," he said. "They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them." Mike loved kids -- all kids -- and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball, and lacrosse.

That's when the idea for his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling head gearand shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike whatI had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years.

For each Christmas, I followed the tradition -- one year sending a group of mentally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the weekbefore Christmas, and on and on.

The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning, and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents.

As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure The story doesn't end there. You see, we lost Mike last year due to dreaded cancer. When Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning it was joined by three more.

Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad. The tradition has grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchildren standing around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation watching as their fathers take down the envelope.

Mike's spirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with us. May we all remember Christ, who is the reason for the season, and the true Christmas spirit this year and always.