2018 Week 51: Christmas Chaos

Christmas is over, now it's time to reflect and recover.

Let's look back over the week.The Wednesday after the last blog post, I surprised Mother for a short visit. I was there for her quarterly care plan conference. Her annual cognitive and mood evaluation was better than the last one. She knew all the answers. Short term memory is to be expected at her age, but given some clues and reminders she is able to recall. And her mood and attitude are amazing. The social worker says, "If I live to be 97, I want to be like Mrs. Hoyt."

We looked at her new cards and photos, arranged them on the bulletin board, and visited Aunt Margaret.

A few of us enjoyed painting tiles again in our weekly art club, and chatting, of course.

My favorite is the one on the right.

Jimmy's gift needed to be delivered to free up space in Mike's car so we went over to their house and got to enjoy Leah's decorations.

Later that night, a note and photo told us that Jimmy and his gift had already bonded.

Almost every spare moment until Christmas was spent preparing and wrapping gifts, writing notes, mailing letters, cleaning and tidying the house.

Our first Christmas celebration event was Stephan and Karen's annual brunch--lots of good food and conversation, catching up with friends we hadn't seen in a long time. 

It was a beautifully sunny day.  Most of us went out for a walk to and through the woods. On the way past the little pond I noticed a couple frozen frogs. Are they simply hibernating? Will they come back to life?

Kayla couldn't forget the fun family tradition of her growing up years--Christmas Eve meal of artichokes and shrimp. She invited us over for an evening of snack type food and fun. We attempted the artichoke meal a couple days later at our family gathering.

How do you like Rebecca's horse? She had to settle for a stuffed one instead of the real thing.

Lego constructions were a team effort. Sorting the colors helped.

The next day Michael, Diane and I traveled North to have Christmas dinner with Mother in the main dining room.  

And finally on the 26th in the afternoon everyone came to our house. That's when things became happily chaotic.

We talked about who's birthday we were celebrating and what would we give Him. 

Jude (6) said, "Myself. He already has my gift."

We were reminded of the message of the song about the little drummer boy who honors God with his gift and talent of playing music. 

The number of Christmas stockings grows with each new girlfriend. However, this year I added a golden one on the stairs to represent Jesus and to remind us of how we may honor Him. 

Among the many gifts were a Kathryn Hoyt original painting for each of her Koch grandchildren.

Here are some of my favorite pictures. Thank you, Leah.

All the young uns 20 and under

Only a few years ago Elijah used to measure up to me every time he came over. He just couldn't wait to be taller than me, no great feat really. Look at him now at age 13, almost 14.

And now, the final family event is a three-day vacation in a big house near Madison, IN. More about that next week in the last Meemaw Moments post.