Quiet holiday

Clare,

Blessed second day of Christmas.

My Christmas eve was filled with baking and preparing. I made the annual sweet rolls...
no one wanted to help...
but they were thrilled that I was making a double batch. I anticipated 9 sleepers in our house for Christmas Eve. But, as the day progressed my second daughter told me she was not coming for the night...another stop had been added to their Christmas Eve tour. A little while later my older son told me that he and his girlfriend had to work later than expected so they would also be coming on Christmas morning. At first I was feeling sad...disappointed...
but I decided to enjoy what was happening at the house and not wish for more.
I spent over 4 hours going to...being at...and returning home from the Meeting house. I had a brilliant idea to create luminaries to hold thoughts and people in the Light (literally). It seemed like a great idea...for any size donation people created bags with names or ideas that they wanted to be held on Christmas Eve. I collected $150, which will be used to help our immigrant families with summer camps for their children. The "bump in the road" came when only one woman offered to help set them up with me. I was obligated to set up, monitor, and clean up through a 2 hour vigil.
The sand I bought to weigh the bags down was wet. A few of the bags began to break apart before we could place them. The tea light candles only burned for about 45 min. I had to replace and relight them all about half way through the vigil. One of the bags broke through and bent over- catching fire. Luckily a woman was taking a picture of the scene at the time and she put it out. If I eve do this again it will involve mason jars, no sand, and possible battery run candles.

Christmas Day was lovely. We didn't begin to open presents until about 10. It took us hours as we took frequent breaks and the kids were telling stories. It was a great day.

My youngest is behaving better the past few days. He does know that if he is expelled from this school, his next school is in Utah. He asked to go there to avoid failing 2 classes- I told him to work harder. The option is available...but not as an escape.

Back to work tomorrow...I've got to get a bunch of hours in so I can go to MD on Friday. I spoke with Mama D and S#5...I am worried that Papa's time is drawing near. If I had to guess I'd say early spring. I hate to say that, but it is my gut instinct. S#5 and I spoke of Mama's reluctance to acknowledge what's going on. I spoke with her about getting a palliative care specialist to help with comfort...she heard "hospice". I had to reassure her that many people use palliative care for chronic pain conditions and the goal was comfort. We really need to support S#5 during this period.

That's about all for now...I've got to let husband remove a large splinter from my finger...I pushed a window up quickly to scare the squirrels from my bird feeder and got a splinter in my pinky from the window jam...I need to learn patience.

Love and Light beautiful sister,
Maggie