Christmas Prep

Cold. The driveway is a sheet of ice. I slid as I went for the mail, then struggled with ice in the lock attempting to retrieve letters from the box. Another beautiful Pennsylvania day.

Slowly friends are beginning to find us at this northern address. One card came with greetings from a friend we haven't heard from in over ten years. How they found us is still a mystery. An email arrived today from a friend who had also failed to get out cards last year, promising to update his card list and include pictures this year.

Deliveries are still somewhat of a problem. GPS coordinates haven't been loaded for our development so the carriers usually call for directions. More then once I've seen online tracking messages indicating an expected delivery has been returned to the warehouse for 'unknown address'.

The past few weekends have been spent on Christmas decorating. The tree is up, wreaths and candles in the windows, and a beautiful welcome wreath on the front door. It's hard to decorate a new place. The favorite nooks and crannies for that special Santa or Angel are gone. We calculated that the last time all of the decorations were displayed was 2005. Less table space forces tough decisions on what gets displayed and what gets stored or tossed. Imagine the wonder of opening boxes sealed three years ago to find forgotten Christmas treasures. Overwhelming, but exciting.