Merry Christmas

Well we are in recovery mode after the Christmas holiday. That involves cleaning up, writing thank you notes, and exchanging things that didn't work out. Even though I was really rushed at the end, everything turned out as I had planned and for that I am very thankful. I work really hard every year to make Christmas special for my family, so they will have those good memories to hold onto. This year was a little different as Jim had to work on Christmas Eve and Day. We changed up our routine and opened gifts on Christmas Eve this year. It made for a busy day as I also had to work. I got home and started our Christmas dinner and then headed off to church with the boys. We had to go to a different church because services at our church were not at the right times for what we needed that night. We came home from church just as Jim arrived home from work. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner of ham, cheese potatoes, broccoli, carrots, pumpkin bread, rolls, jello, apple and pumpkin pie. Afterwards, we opened our gifts. They boys seemed very pleased the things we gave to them. It gets so hard as they get older to keep the focus off the gifts by keeping it reasonable-after all it is not what the season is really about. This year we gave each of them a set of Batman glasses that I bought off E-Bay. We had a set when they were little and they lost it when I tried to get rid of them. Both of them insisted that they wanted them when they moved out of the house. Nate got a new hoodie and Noah a pair of basketball shoes for their second gift. Noah got a package of goodies including a new laptop battery, some styling product for his hair, some Dunkin Doughnuts coffee, and a carbon monoxide detector for the old rental house at college. Nate got a custom t-shirt with a drawing he did in art last year on the front and a couple hundred dollars off his car stereo. That is a sore subject that threatened to ruin Christmas. He had asked for money to install a car stereo for his work study project over a month ago. I said he could either borrow the money and get a job and pay me back, or I would be willing to pay for him to install a reasonable stereo with a CD player and some new speakers and that would be his Christmas gift. Originally he said he would get a job and pay me back. When he came home he had a huge sub woofer and an amplifier in the back end of his car along with the stereo and new speakers-that's not what we agreed to. When I asked how much it all was, he said around 220 dollars. When I told him it was time to get the job, he was shocked because he thought it was his Christmas present! In the meantime, he told me the sub was defective and had to go back and they were ordering him a new better one. I went in before Christmas to make sure that we were at about 220 dollars and found out that it was currently at 743 dollars and when the new sub came in it would be a little over 900 dollars! This is equipment they gave to him at cost without labor! Not only did this news sour my Christmas spirit, he has been doing his manipulative stubborn Nathan thing-and since it is not working things have been tense and ugly. He has been told he has to get a job by his birthday and start paying me back or I am going to sell the car to pay for the stereo. I'm pretty sure he is going to learn this lesson the hard way. Future forecast-ugliness with power struggles on the horizon, probably bad name calling and maybe some retaliation too. Looking forward to that! He exhausts me. If only he put his energy into doing what he needs to instead of working so hard to avoid it. We have a New Year's Eve celebration we've been invited to and Jim's birthday, and then we are through celebrating for awhile.

Our new furniture hurts my back. I picked it out because it was firm with a firm back and it seemed great in the store. If I sit on it for awhile though, my back hurts. I think I just need to get a lumbar support pillow and it will be fine, but what a bummer. The day after Christmas I found some tables for the living room. We have never had tables before-and Jim wonders why we need them now! They look nice with the new furniture though and have some storage too. Jim is looking into refinancing our house and combining it with a home equity loan to fix up our bathrooms/kitchen. That would be awesome to be able to hire someone and finally get that done. Noah has been a delight to have home over break. He has been very helpful-even doing some things without being asked. He has also been more considerate and thoughtful towards his family. I guess he finally took me seriously about not living here next summer and decided to change his ways. We have had several snow storms-Nate got an extra day of Christmas vacation which was a blessing because he was running behind on several projects that were due that day (imagine that). Yesterday it got up to nearly 60 and rained, so most if it is gone now. Well that's about all I have for now. I have to get back to my laundry so I can get to bed soon.