Happy news! The holiday is coming up, and my mood's up. My mom, before she passed away, requested our famous gingersnap cookies for neighbor gifts. I've been spending a little time taking those around. I've never really enjoyed passing around things to neighbors. It's not really a thing for me, but my parents grew up in a culture where that was considered courteous. These days, there are so many people with food issues that it's being more of a thing for our neighbors to bring around other things besides food. My parents never caught on to that, so as long as there is at least one parent alive, we're going to have to deal with making up treats.
Interesting thing so far about passing these treats along, I have a few neighbors who bring me into their house and want to have a chat with me, and they want to talk to me about how I'm doing with my mom gone. I have to limit my time with them, because I can't leave my disabled brother alone too long, but it's been comforting that they're still thinking of us in this situation.
We generally have a quiet holiday, so I'm expecting it to be quiet again this year. I have one more thing to do for my mom this Christmas, and that's to give her gift she had me get to my dad. I'm not sure how he'll react, but I suppose we'll find out soon. It's something she wanted to get him a few months ago and she insisted I help her get it. I'm glad we took care of that so early, because we had no idea she wouldn't make it to Christmas. She was so excited about it. I'll have to report on that later.
My cough from my illness is finally starting to suppress, but I still missed being in the choir, and others have told me they've missed seeing me there. I ended up sharing with them the piece of music I prepared earlier in the year (the same one I shared on my previous post), and I'm so glad I've been thinking ahead this year. I had that ready, and I had all my Christmas things ready before all of the events started happening to us. Having three deaths in the family (aunt, mother, cousin) all in less than two months and dealing with an illness that was slow moving took up most of our time that we would normally be going out and doing some fun and enjoyable things. It's all good, though. It hasn't broken my spirit for Christmas. I'm just happy to be with my friends and family, and that's all I need.
Here's another favorite Christmas song from me:
