PreChristmas Update

I haven't posted for awhile, because I've been busy with Christmas decorating, baking, cards and visiting with friends and neighbors. This year my husband and I decided to not give Christmas presents to each other, because we both have difficulty deciding what to buy for each other. 2 years ago we just gave each other gift certificates to our favorite stores. However, I love shopping, but he doesn't. I used all my gift certificates within a few months. My husband, who warned me that the certificates would soon expire, kept his unused certificates for almost a year.

Last year we decided to buy each other one expensive gift. I wanted to buy my husband a new bicycle. However, he's very attached to his old bicycle, which needed lots of repairs and part replacements. So we took his bike to REI and I paid for a complete overhaul of that bike. I had a sewing machine which requires tricky installation of a special attachment to evenly feed both layers of fabric (a walking foot). So he bought me a new sewing machine with a dual (even) feed option. Then we just stuffed each other's Christmas stocking with edible gifts.

This year I decided to give my time, rather than spend money on presents, so that my husband didn't have to shop for presents. I baked 4 different kinds of Christmas cookies, decorated most of the house, spent a day cooking a preChristmas dinner and will spend this afternoon preparing winter (butternut squash) soup. We originally planned to eat that on Christmas Eve. However we also plan to attend an early evening Christmas service. So I decided to just cook the soup today and put away the leftovers after dinner, which we can't easily do, if we need to rush off to an early evening church servicee.

However I kept looking at those empty stockings until I decided to buy and wrap a few edible gifts for my husband. Then I added a few snack bags full of Christas cookies (to remind him of all the cookies I baked for him?). Today I want to buy for him one more 'stocking' gift of warm socks for our cold Seattle winter. Although I told my husband that I didn't need anything, I'm glad I received gifts from friends and relatives. I suspect my husband will do some last minute shopping for gifts to fill my 'sock'.

I totally enjoyed yesterday. I delivered plates of Christmas cookies to 2 different neighbors and spent time chatting with each of them. During the early afternoon an old friend came to visit me. We walked around the lake and fed crows, coots and squirrels. Then I made lunch which we enjoyed, while we continued to share our latest news.

I'll post more later about how we actually celebrated Christmas ...