IT REALLY IS BEGINNING TO FEEL MORE LIKE CHRISTMAS

Until yesterday I had no significant feeling of Christmas approaching at all.  MOH and I talked about it last week and wondered why this is so.  He was of course born in England so the weather is all wrong for him but I was born in this State nearly 81 years ago so should the weather make a difference to me?  Unfortunately it does as I really dislike summer and hot weather and we've had a few hot days recently which reminds me of what the next few months will be like weatherwise and I go sort of numb just thinking about it.

Yesterday I received wish lists for our three great-granddaughters so I got online and ordered several gifts and today I printed out letters to various friends to go with their Christmas cards.  I have now written out 4 cards but have many more to do over the next week.  I know I am going to be late with those to the UK and the US but quite a few friends and rellies will receive Jacquie Lawson e-cards which are very beautiful and I know people love to receive them.  If someone can accept an email then they now rarely get a card by snail mail unless they are very, very, very special.

One reason I send the e-cards these days is because I have real trouble writing for more than a few minutes because of my poor old hands....arthritis.  I am sure MOH would help me but he's sort of not into that sort of thing so I refrain from worrying him about it.   He's a great reader but not a great writer.  I do make him write the cards to a special friend of his and that always takes him about a week to do.

All this is getting me just a wee bit more into the Christmas spirit but only just.  When I asked myself again why I realised that one answer is the restrictions we now have on our diet and how we also have to watch our weight which wasn't a problem years ago.  We used to begin to eat mince pies quite early in December and now we don't.  We'd often have a Christmas cake which would be gone before Christmas Day but now we don't.  We would look forward to all the good things we could eat over Christmas but now we don't (well, perhaps just a bit).  We do enjoy our Christmas dinner but now make sure we don't have all those left-overs that once we ate afterwards right through to New Year....pudding, custard, cream etc.  Are we really that good? Well, most of the time we are.

That does sound terribly grim doesn't it?  I shouldn't 'talk' like that because we should be so thankful we life in such a wonderful city in such a wonderful country where we are free to come and go as we please and say what we think (within reason) and most of us have roofs over our heads and 3 meals a day.  I think to be thankful for these things alone perhaps makes me feel good more than just the thought of Christmas approaching.

I know I am looking forward to sharing Christmas with my family as I don't see enough of them during the year as they are all so very busy and we will eat things we shouldn't but we will not feel guilty doing so because after all it will be Christmas day when we celebrate the birth of a man who I feel lived a very good unselfish life.  I am not religious so that side of the celebration is not there for me but as my mum used to say "If everyone lived their life in the same way that Jesus did then the world would be a much better place".  She was not very religious either but she did a lot of good for other people in her social work so let's celebrate the birth and life of a wonderful man born all those centuries ago and look forward to doing so on Christmas Day.