The “unopened gifts” Part II

The other day I wrote about the ‘unopened gifts’ which were being discussed on the radio program Justin and I subscribe to. The guest host, Joe Paggs, was talking about the sorrow of those parents in CT who would have to deal with the unopened gifts purchased for the children who would never again gather around the Christmas tree. Justin cautioned me not to listen to the first hour of the show (downloaded podcast) because of this discussion, knowing it would cause me upset. I also had to deal with unopened presents when Timmy died, his funeral being on his 5^th birthday.

Well, our family gathered tonight to open our Christmas presents in Mom’s community room. We were laughing and having a great time watching the kids unwrap their presents and so on. Then, after the two older boys were done and off playing with new gifts, Lisa helped Angelo open his. He is quite expressive and would oooh and ahhh over his cars and trucks. At one point, Lisa pulled an orange ‘Wiggle’ out of a gift bag and then a stuffed animal in a cardboard wrapper. Angelo grabbed the orange carrot-looking thing right away.

Lynn leaned over to Lisa and said, “That lion was Timmy’s…” She was presenting Angelo (Lisa) with ‘an unopened present’ which she had purchased to give to Timmy for his 5^th birthday. Lynn had had it on her shelf for these nearly 12 years and decided it was time to move it on to Angelo (Lisa) after reading my blog. Needless to say, many of us were in tears just like that (snap of the fingers). I am still so moved I can barely see the keys. Thanks, Lynn, for that wonderful gift, now opened and soon to be placed on Angelo’s shelf!

Collecting thoughts

The other night Mom and I watched “A Christmas Carol”, the version with George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge. It had been years since I saw the story from start to finish, and it was good. I would see snippets of it portrayed at the Clay County Christmas but that hardly cuts it. Mom remembered seeing a much older version of this story when she was younger so I looked up the listing of men who had played Scrooge in the past. That is quite the lengthy list, including Henry Winkler and Jim Carrey.  Some of the stories were cartoon-style as well as the darker, spookier ones Mom recalled. This one with GC Scott went a long way to presenting the story of Christmas’s past, present and future. I am curious, though, what was done to help Tiny Tim and his illness after Scrooge’s conversion.

On another night the two of us saw “Driving Miss Daisy”, always a fun movie to watch. When the movie first came out in the theater, Mom and I went to see it. She did not often attend the movies otherwise, and saw more with me in Florida than she had in a long while. Sometimes others from church would join us for movie outings or just she and I would go. Besides seeing “Daisy”, we once saw “Fried Green Tomatoes” starring Jessica Tandy in each movie. As I told Mom the other night, the good news was “Daisy” was going be on. The bad news was it started at 9:00 pm when Mom is usually ready for bed. The two of us did manage to watch almost all of it before having to retire. It goes longer when there are commercials!

Not normally a fan of the Christmas-themed movies, I have seen a couple with Mom since I am here. She has already seen many of them, or variations of the same movie with different actors. The story is basically the same but the city or something is just different enough to make it a new movie. We did watch one or two together when there is simply nothing else to watch. They are alright, but nothing I can make a steady diet of. I so prefer my comedies or a good “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” to amuse me. But I am also a good sport and wish to be socialable with Mom. She also likes to watch “American Pickers” and “Pawn Stars” but those are on in the day time, I think.

My sister, Lynn, has been having treatments done with lasers on her eyes, first the left eye one week and then the other the next, in order to ease pressure in her eyes. She has the early stages of glaucoma and in order to avoid having to instill the drops for the rest of her life, she opted for this treatment. When she was in for her 2^nd eye this past week, the doctor measured the pressure in her first eye and determined the pressure was down, which is great news. It worked! 

We are all urged now to go have our eyes tested in case we have it too. My plans are to do that in January as I am sure I need glasses anyway. I hope my pressure is okay. Mom has been using the drops, various types of drops twice a day for years now, and what a blessing this type of procedure would have been for her, and others like her.

Kerry and Alayna agreed to babysit for the boys last night, at Grandma K’s apartment. I was making dinner which included a roast my sister, Jill, provided. At one point we had 9 people including the kids in Mom’s house. Good thing the boys are so well behaved or it could have been hairy! 

Besides the roast I made sweet potatoes and mac ‘n cheese purchased at Wal*Mart in the microwaveable containers plus cooked up the head of cauliflower I’d bought a few days earlier. Oh my, what a tasty meal it was! Angelo ate on the run, not wishing to sit down to dine but he did fairly well. He'd rather play than eat, it seems.

All three boys are getting over being sick, which caused them to miss their Christmas program at the church school they attend last Sunday. That is the 2^nd time I was here but not able to see the boys in their program. Might have to wait until they are in high school to see them! Gabe mentioned being sad about missing out on it, but he couldn’t come up with the song they were going to sing. It was a different melody of “Angels We Have Heard on High” but without the music, he could not sing it for us.
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Kerry, Jill, and I went shopping a bit yesterday afternoon. I hadn’t meant to tag along but needed the ingredients for making the pretzel torte. Justin wanted me to make it ‘for the family’ so I will try my hand at it in the morning. Instead of using the Jello and fresh berries on top, I am taking the short cut of using a can of pie filling. Should do the trick nicely, I am sure. 

Justin asked me to borrow Linda’s blitzhacker from Pampered Chef but she suggested another tool from PP which would do the same or better job. I did bring it along from her house but Mom offered her rolling pin and I might use that instead. This is a major job---crushing the pretzels! One recipe I looked up said to pulverize the pretzels while another cautions against such a thing. Must find that middle ground! Wish me well on this!