Happy Christmas Sister Dearest...

(From Temporary Holiday Quarters)
A Little Condo by a Man-Made Lake
Way-way South of the Border

December 26, 20012

Dearest V.  

This morning I am filled with Christmas memories, from days long, long ago, in far off England when we three youngest children would come tearing down the stairs to find our very own pillow-case, stuffed to the frills with toys and sweeties that our parents could barely afford financially, but were oh so generously given emotionally. Why no memory of our eldest sister in those early Christmases I can not fathom, but I only see you and I with enormous teddy bears and David with his brand new tricycle.

Then the sumptuous meal always finished with the Christmas pudding that we could only manage a mere spoonful of.  And the final vision of an exhausted mother curled up asleep on the couch still wearing her paper Christmas hat.

Later years brought the trips to Salisbury and midnight services at the cathedral followed by a Dickensian-style (in the best way) Christmas Day at The Rose and Crown. Ha, ha...how funny and tender those memories are!

Christmas today wears a much different gown...we boarded a plane in the snowy-cold hours of Christmas Eve morning with other sleepy but excited travelers to the announcement of 'no potable water on board as we are the first flight out of the day'  (how does that make sense?); so no early morning tea, and it's a draughty plane that carries us the short three hours to our children.

The past two days have been filled with laughter, gourmet-cooked food, indulgent wines, magnetic dart games and hilarious versions of trivial pursuit, long walks with the girls and my grand-puppy.

How time changes the face of these holidays.  Feeling, however, remain the same.  You are my earliest, happiest and most constant memory of Christmas.  I think I miss you most at this time of year.

Write and tell me of your Christmas day with your grandsons...I'm sure it was wonderful and hilarious all at the same time.  Happy Christmas...love j.