Christmas 2018 in Jefferson

Update - December 23 to December 29

-- Christmas Week 2018 at home in Jefferson Mass.

Santa spotted overhead

We knew there wouldn't be any significant snow for Christmas, so we had made some visits to the north where we could crunch through the snow and build up our holiday spirit. But, when it got close to Christmas day it was nice to be home and enjoy the decorations, the family visits, and the quiet of life in Jefferson. On Christmas Eve (afternoon) we had the family over. Baby Olive and her sister Lucy brought their mother Corinne and kept everyone entertained and on alert. Also, among the younger set were Leela and her brother Louis who also brought their mother, Kari.

Also visiting were my nieces, Paige and Lily. The other adults in the room included my brother Stephen and his wife Marna; Patti's brother John, and her sister Mary, plus her son Steve and her mate Ira. They had come down earlier and spent a few nights with us to enjoy the holiday. Patti's other brother, David, joined us for Christmas dinner. Nephew Steve took over the kitchen and was the head chef on the pork loin served on Christmas Day. Patti handled the potatoes and I handled the bar.

-- Gift Exchange on Christmas Eve

Leela, Lucy, and Papa as Artists

The sound of shredding wrapping paper filled the playroom, especially where Lucy was in action as she tore open gift after gift with an immediate eye toward which present was next? It was a lively event as the television played a Christmas movie, the children kept pressing the buttons that made the snowmen toot their horns, Baby Olive serenaded everyone with her crying, and everyone else tried to talk over the rest of us. It may have appeared to be nothing but bedlam, but it was a lot of fun too.

Fine China for Christmas Dinner

In more quiet moments, when Leela and Lucy wanted to do some drawing, we brought out the markers and the paper so they could be creative. Lucy has a current fascination with drawing monster faces. She indicates it's a monster as it has a down-turned smile. Happy people (not Monsters) have an up-turned smile. If Papa tries to be creative and add teeth, he is disappointed to learn that teeth are not part of the scheme and must be removed. There's more to being a Papa than I realized.

The featured player, no doubt, was the youngest, Olive, who everyone wanted to hold, feed, and cuddle when given the chance. Here are some more pictures from the holiday with an emphasis on the little ones.


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Scenes of Christmas: (Starting from top left) Patti is feeding Olive, Olive enjoys a brief nap, Richard and Patti pose in the living room, Lucy stockpiles some of her gifts and Lucy embraces Olive after nap time is over.

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READ my Blog "The Books of Richard F Wright" (Books, Bookstores, Writing)

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-- Olive and Lucy Visit on Thursday

Paige gets a smile from Olive

A few days after Christmas we had the chance to watch Olive and Lucy, so the nieces Lily and Paige joined us in the afternoon. Olive has been having a lot of distress after feeding with getting that big burp needed to smooth out her gastro tract. This has led to some uncomfortable crying spells in the past few weeks. But, today she seemed a bit less in distress and we got some big smiles from her.

It occurred to Lily that she had an urge to bake, so she set about making brownies. She pulled everything together in the kitchen and seemed pleased that I would know it was a 13 x 9 pan she would need. The brownies were delicious, or as Lucy has been quoted, they were "A delicious taste sensation." I believe she picked up that expression from Sponge Bob, but I'm not sure.

-- Not Your Average Joe's 

Not Your Average Patti

During the holiday week, Patti and I did some shopping and returning items to the stores. We took the opportunity to have a lunch break at Not Your Average Joe's restaurant in Westborough. We like the place and have found the food to be reliably good with helpful service. Patti is always aware that the large serving of complimentary bread tends to make her full before the meal arrives. Plus, if she has an exotic drink, it tends to fill her up before the entree too. So, as predicted there was a lot of leftovers; which is now something that she plans on at Not Your Average Joe's.

The food was delivered quickly by the manager, who could be spotted clearing tables and checking with guests. The waiter stopped by frequently to be sure all was okay. When we asked to wrap up the food he suggested that he could add some bread and oil if we would like it and to be honest, it's the bread and oil that gets Patti to come each time in the first place! We left a nice tip.

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Reading Update: I seldom have difficulty reading books as I do, in short bursts with a lot of interruptions, because I seem able to pick up where I left off not losing any of the momentum that the author has built into the narrative. For those of you who find it difficult to read a book unless you can go right through it without interruption, you might like to read something like, "I Wish I'd Been There," Edited by Byron Hollinshead. This book is a collection of essays by 20 different historians commenting on significant (and sometimes insignificant) historical events that they would have like to have witnessed first hand. In all cases, the historian knows as much or more about the topic as anyone but can certainly imagine what more they could learn if they had been there.

 Events such as Harper's Ferry, the Assassination of Lincoln, the Lewis and Clark expedition, and the Scopes Trial are examples of persons and events that these historians would love to have witnessed. As there are 20 chapters, you could treat each as a separate topic and even skip one or more if you felt little interest in it. This makes it a perfect travel book, where you want to read something but know you will be constantly interrupted. I learned a lot about the events, even those I had some familiarity with, so it's definitely worth reading when you have the time.

Christmas 2018 Preparations - Gift Wrapping -

Update - December 16 to December 22

Currier and Ives Display Homes 

-- Decorating the House

Patti and I have enjoyed celebrating Christmas differently this year. We used our vacation time to make some trips that allowed us to celebrate in a relaxed setting from Maine to Vermont. We also decorated differently this year. We brought out some of our holiday village pieces and created some vignettes throughout the house. Grandaughter Lucy has enjoyed seeing the villages and learning the difference between a toy and a decoration.
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READ my Blog "The Books of Richard F Wright" (Books, Bookstores, Writing)

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Snow Covered Roofs Create the Mood

-- Snow Makes it Festive

One of the things I like about the village pieces is the snow. When we went to Maine and Vermont we wanted to crunch through the snow as there really wasn't any on the ground in Jefferson. So, seeing the snow in the villages helps with the mood-setting.

-- Mac 'N Cheese is Always a Hit

Lucy and Mac 'N Cheese

Most four-year-olds have some fussy moments when it comes to eating and Lucy is no exception. There are times when I wonder if she's going to eat anything at all on a given visit. But, generally, if I make some Mac 'N Cheese I can get her interested in some lunch. I've learned that if I offer a small portion she's more likely to ask for more than if I offer a large portion; where she turns it away immediately and states she doesn't want it. The other thing that I have found helps with getting a full meal is to serve one item at a time. She might eat some ham or some other extra item, as long as I don't serve it on the same plate, or even at the same time. Maybe, it's just too overwhelming to have all the choices that slows her down.

-- Gift Wrapping and Christmas Movies

Equal Mix of Wrapped and Gift Bagged

My annual ritual is that if Patti is at work or at an "ornament" party with friends from the hospital, I find it a perfect time to wrap the Christmas gifts. To keep me in the mood I run Christmas movies and specials while I wrap gifts and drink eggnog. Hood eggnog is better than Big Y eggnog, but I can live with either. The Bacardi goes a long way to equalize between the two. My favorite wrapping technique is the gift bag, but to help the kids enjoy their "unwrapping" I use a traditional gift wrap to make it more fun to open the presents. For adult gifts, I prefer to use the tissue paper and gift bag. For the record, the stockings look great on the fireplace, but you really can't fit anything inside except a candy cane, so I don't bother.

So far we have watched A Christmas Story, A Christmas Carol, The Miracle on 34th Street, and Funny Farm. Now, I know you may not consider Funny Farm a Christmas movie, but we hadn't watched it for years and it was even more hilarious than ever as we had just spent a week in Vermont recently, enjoying the "country" life and the quirky people in towns like Woodstock, Quechee, and White River Junction. The movie reminded us of the scenes and people we had just visited so we got a lot of laughs out of the movie. You should try to see it again.

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Reading Update: On a visit to Cape Canaveral last year, 
Patti and I learned that NASA had made a decision to stop operating our shuttles and concentrate on landing on the planet Mars. This was a realistic approach adopted in view of the extreme expense each program represented. In effect, Congress said, "Pick One," but, you can't have both. So, it's on to Mars. The private sector will have to take over the local space travel to space stations and near-Earth orbit activity. By the way, on our last visit to Florida, we saw one of the Space X rockets floating on a barge after being recovered from the sea. 

I mention all this as a preface to my finishing a book by Andrew Mishkin, "Sojourner, An Insider's View of the Mars Pathfinder Mission." His book documents the effort it took during the 1990s to get a "rover" onto the surface of Mars in order to determine how we could eventually explore the Mars surface with astronauts. The book is a fascinating overview of how they did it and what it might mean for the efforts NASA is expending today to get to Mars.