Saturday, December 26, 2009

Christmas

Merry Christmas!! Yeah, I know it's the day after Christmas. So what?! Who cares?
As you can see I did not blog much this month at all. It was a difficult month and I am glad to say "I am sittin' up eating table food, and doing just fine!"
Yeah, so sometimes there are tears in my oatmeal.. it needs salt anyway right?
Ha! See, my new attitude? This was a big year for "first things." It was my first Christmas without my brother. That was difficult. I may not have mentioned it, but in Nov/Dec I lost a 29yo cousin (Olga) to H1N1 !! She left behind three young boys. She was single and had been through some dark paths in her life, but she was working on putting her life back on the right track. Sad... Just about 2 wks after that, my aunt Helen died. more sadness... My aunt Jenny was taking care of my aunt Helen in her home. Helen was one tough cookie, up until the moment she passed. It's funny, talking to one of my cousins, we joked about how we grew up being scared of her! She was a tall, big woman with a husky voice that she carried loudly! If she was in the room, everyone knew it. I can say, that because of my brother's passing I have a new memory of my aunt Helen. I got to sit and have a meal with her during my time in El Paso. She walked into my aunt's house wearing a funny hat! I wish I could describe it. It was kind of like a Cat in the Hat hat. I want to say it was purple, but not sure.. I'll have to go back and look at the pictures. Anyway, I now think of my aunt as, my aunt with the funny hat. smile..
Interestingly, enough my aunt Jenny took in my cousin's three boys. I guess she will get custody of them and raise them as her boys. She has three grown children and now she is starting all over again. Whew! God Bless her!
I know I went off on a tangent there.. oh well. Life happens. The greatest and biggest, bestest first of all was that this was our FIRST EVER creditless Christmas!! Yep! Yee-ha!! We or "I" since I did 95% of the shopping did not charge a red cent!! The greatest thing is that the presents were better than ever this year!! Since my coupon shopping started, I have been able to get some SUPER good deals! One deal I got was to do a 30day free Trial of AmazonPrime. I signed up on Novemeber 22 and made sure it was not automatic renewal and shopped my heart out! With that little benefit I got FREE SHIPPING on ALL my orders! OMG! I joked that the neighbors were going to think I started selling drugs or something. The delivery trucks, just kept coming and coming. Fed Ex, UPS, USPS, it was awesome!
I have not done the tally on how much we spent and how much we saved, but I know it is significant. OMG! Another great giant First was the kids FIRST WHITE CHRISTMAS!!
Yep! We actually got snow in North Texas for Christmas! It actually came Christmas eve, but was still on the ground Christmas morning and throughout the day. Okay, Okay, so it was not much, but heck, It was snow nonetheless!
It is beautiful and sunny out today. Not much evidence of a white Christmas anymore, just the evidence of a bright sunshiny day!!

1 comment:

MaBunny said...

Ok, I knew about your brother and cousin, but am sorry to hear of your other loses... I know how hard Christmas , or any family holiday for that matter , can be after the death of a loved one... but you have friends here that love you and this one is hoping you have a fantastic new year:) and yes the snow was pretty amazing, even if it was gone by mid afternoon!