Welcome Maddux Mark Archibald

I haven’t really changed my blogging date to Thursday. We have just been focused on all the excitement of our second great grandchild born Tuesday afternoon, December 9, at Aurora to our oldest grandchild, Tara Archibald and her husband Bryan.

We’ve been busy checking out email photos of Maddux and his big brother Aidan, who will be three in May. I saw more adorable photos tonight posted by Bryan on Facebook. Gerald has taken copies over to his other great grandmother, Gma Shirley. We found out Shirley had her first great granddaughter a week or so ago. We knew Tara’s cousin Jeremy and his wife were expecting at the same time as Tara, but we didn’t know their little girl had arrived. I am sure Shirley has already shown the photos of Maddux and Aidan to great great grandmother Imogene, who lives beside Shirley.

In all this excitement and the busyness of the season, I somehow lost a day. I was actually hurrying earlier this afternoon so I could go to the Wednesday night monthly business meeting at our village church. Obviously, I am a little late.

This morning I took our decades-old Christmas tree and its huge string of lights to the Household Give-Away that the Ministerial Alliance operates. It is only open on Thursday mornings, so I should have known tonight was not Wednesday. But it is easy to get mixed up during this season. I had rushed there because I overslept, but I did get there. They welcomed our tree since they had just given away their last one. Afterwards Gerald and I met at Menards, where he was Christmas shopping and I had seen an ad for pre-lit trees. After our shopping, we had lunch together at Fazoil’s and were pleased to run into Joe and Janet Walker, who live in Marion, but are from our home community, and we had a nice visit.

I’d decided as a concession to my age that I would buy a pre-lit tree this year for the family room. I may have made a mistake. For one thing, it is heavier than the old tree; and if Gerald had not put it together and figured out how to hook the lights together, I am not sure I could have. The multi-colored lights are so very pretty that I almost hate to add all the boxes of ornaments I use on this tree that I consider the family tree where gifts will accumulate. Maybe I will get those ornaments on tomorrow. Gerald got down the lights that the wind had blown up on the house and added some more before it turns cold again.

The upstairs tree is shining out the living room window. It is almost finished. I still have a few more ornaments to put on as I needed some more of the little hooks, which were downstairs. I’ll take them up in a minute and put the last ornaments on before I ready the coffee for Gerald’s breakfast.

I haven’t decided whether or not to add the beautiful silver icicles that Katherine and Mary Ellen and I had so much fun buying years ago at a sale in Nashville, Tennessee. I used them last year, but I may skip putting them on this year. I would just add a few from the silver box every time I passed the tree, and eventually the tree was covered with the old-fashioned icicles.

This tree also needs to be replaced. It has shed from the moment I brought it home over a decade ago, and now some of the limbs have fallen off. A big reason I went to an artificial tree was I was wanting to avoid fallen needles. I want to have those needles vacuumed up before I place the old wine shower curtain beneath it as a tree skirt to match the wine in the couches there.

I received a special Christmas call this afternoon from my cousin Doug in California, and I caught up news on him and Vera and their three boys. Josh is still in the military and he and his wife presented Doug and Vera with a first grandson Josiah Ray. David is teaching math and Chris is teaching piano. David has already started on his doctorate.

We are getting Christmas cards daily in the mail, and I am thinking about ours. I bought some Christmas stamps but still need to buy cards and make copies of the annual Christmas letter. Usually I buy the cheapest cards I can find now that daughter Jeannie no longer makes cards. Hers were works of art that I was proud of sending and some folks framed. I figured these I send now get thrown away and that is okay. The point is to stay in touch and honor the friendships of the past.