Nana Celebrates Christmas

I write this several days before Christmas.  It has been snowing off and on for several days.  I have ventured outside only as far as the hot tub...and if anyone had been watching, that would have been a sight!  Stark naked I picked my way through the snow.  My bare feet sank through the powder to the underlying ice.  It's probably less than 10 feet from the patio door to the hot tub and each time I made this trip over the past few days I worried about falling.  Even though I am officially a senior citizen, I don't wear a panic button.  If I went down, my naked, lumpy body would be found frozen in the drifts.  What a Christmas memory that would make for the unlucky family member who found me!


We planned to drive to San Diego to spend Christmas with my brother and his family.  Our children and grandchildren will all meet us there.  The snow made us rethink our plan.  Although I was looking forward to a road trip, we decided to replace bad roads and holiday traffic with the chaos of air travel.

So, Christmas day I will have everyone I love under one roof...or, we'll be stuck in various airports across the country!
Our granddaughters, who live in Texas, have never seen snow.  We've planned a trip to the mountains to introduce them to snow angels, sledding, and numb fingers.  Nana has purchased a complete snow wardrobe for each of them.

We last visited our grandchildren at Thanksgiving.  Several times we watched our youngest granddaughter, who is three, play "beach party."  She has never seen the ocean or a beach, so her concept of a beach party is to put a blanket on the floor and drag all her toys out to share a snack.  When asked what she was doing, she replied "It's a beach party,"  as if it should be obvious to anyone with half a brain.  This next week we will go from the snow covered mountains to the sandy shore and show her what a real beach looks like, and we'll probably have a snack on a blanket in the sand.

The last time that my family was together at Christmas was four years ago when my mother died.  We all gathered in San Diego to be together and to clean out her house.  So again this year, this time under joyous circumstances, everyone I love will be under one roof for Christmas.  I will sleep knowing that everyone is safe and warm. 

Merry Christmas everyone.  I hope you and the ones you love are safe and warm this Christmas.