December 25, 2020

 Friday December 25, 2020

Christmas Day,  Merry Christmas everyone!

We slept in this morning.  The outside temperature 19.

Dressed and fixed an oatmeal breakfast.  We will have our Christmas dinner about 1430 today.

About 0930 we opened our presents.  A real cornucopia.  Thanks everyone.

Spent some time reading papers that published on Christmas.  Today we also had nice FaceTime conversations with our three children and their families. 

Also FaceTimed my sister, Helen, in Tucson.  We reminisced on Christmas Days of our youth. We remember on Christmas Day afternoon we would all get in the car and visit relatives living in Alpena.  Our first stop would be at the home of Uncle Jim Scott.  Uncle Jim was dad’s younger brother.  Uncle Jim and Aunt Ruth had five daughters.  We would look at their Christmas gifts.  The adults would all have several mixed drinks and the kids got a soft drink and cookies.  

Our second stop would be at the home of my Uncle Bill Hughes, mother’s older brother.  Uncle Bill and Aunt Bernice had three boys,  Billy, Doug and Roland.  Once again Mom and Dad would have several glasses of Christmas Cheer.  The kids enjoyed chocolate candy and soft drinks.

At both stops the conversation was good humored talk of Christmas’s past.  I enjoyed listening to the adults talk especially  after they had several drinks.  A lot of laughter.

I have spent two Christmas away from home.  The first was in 1961 while I was an Ensign assigned to the Public Works Department on US Naval Station, Midway Island.  Being the youngest officer on the Island I was Officer of the Day, OOD, on Christmas. It was easy duty.  My primary job was to see the food in the Enlisted men’s mess was warm and tasty.  I probably put on 20 pounds.

In 1963 I was stationed in Vietnam.  Our quarters in Saigon were near a very large Catholic Cathedral.  I remember on Christmas Eve the streets around the Cathedral were packed with families who had attend Christmas Eve services.  The families all had on their best clothes.  Everyone was very friendly.  It was fun to people watch while sitting on a bench in front of our quarters.  I remember it was very pleasant with temperature probably in low 80s.

Nancy fixed a great Christmas dinner.  We had ham, sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts and roasted potatoes.  Of course we both had a glass of wine and for dessert Apple pie.

We had some ham left over so I had a ham sandwich for dinner.

Tonight we watched a movie on Netflix.  The movie was highly acclaimed.  It was called “Wank”  and was about the author of the screen play for Orion Wells’ movie Citizen Kane.  The movie was in black and white and took place in the 30s in Hollywood. I gave it a B.

It was spitting snow and 25 when checked out the front yard about 2200.  Nancy looked out the window around midnight and saw a big doe chewing on the mineral block we set out.

That folks is Christmas Day 2020.