Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Good Bye 2020 and Hello 2021! Bring on the Vaccine!

  I had to work Christmas Eve. Usually I would be trying to get home as early as possible so we could go out to dinner at the local Chinese restaurant before mass. The kids decided years ago that we should have Chinese food as our traditional Christmas Eve meal(mainly because if we were traveling, that was about the only restaurant open!). We would then go to the Christmas Eve Mass at Our Lady of the Angels Catholic Church at Charlestown when we weren't traveling. We always enjoy the beautiful music and decorations in the cathedral as well as the wonderful sermon by Father Leo at the retirement center where I used to work. Afterwards we would drive through the nearby neighborhoods to enjoy the Christmas lights before heading home for some drinks and dessert, a Christmas movie and maybe open a present or two.  For several years we also were able to have my parents join us, but recently it had been harder to pick up my mom for the late evening mass since she usually eats dinner and is getting ready for bed during that time. And if I am working on Christmas Eve it is even harder to get out of work and rush around. We like that time for Christmas mass, around 7pm,  since there were less residents attending. They all prefer the 4pm mass or Christmas morning and the small cathedral fills up fast with residents and family. We used to go to our parish church for mass when the kids attended elementary school there, but it is always so packed. We used to enjoy the kids mass the best-the kids would act out the nativity and they played great music! Scott was even in the play one year as a shepherd. You still had to get to mass about an hour earlier to get a seat. And now with COVID you have to make a reservation for mass and they don't have as many times offered. Plus you had to stand outside while they check your temperature and it was supposed to rain all Christmas day. No fun. I planned on catching the Milwaukee Heart of the Nation mass online on Christmas day. So this year after I got home from work we ordered Chinese food for pick up. Allison came over to join us but we had a 2 hour wait for our order. I put out a veggie and cheese platter to hold us over while I finished wrapping Christmas gifts and the kids picked up our dinner. Scott prepared some homemade egg nog(and we added a bit of rum! Very tasty! We spent the evening watching an Anime cartoon movie Scott was looking forward to as well as Disney channels "Soul" which we really enjoyed while munching on our food and some Christmas cookies before calling it a night. 

On Christmas Day, Friday the 25th, we were up early and I started bringing the gifts downstairs to put around the tree. Allison was over before lunch. I had big plans to make a breakfast casserole, but everyone was finishing off their leftover Chinese food before I could prepare anything, so we got down to business opening gifts! We even had a little snow to set the mood! Everyone got amazing presents. Allison made out big with items she can use for her apartment like a Roomba vacuum cleaner, a tall step ladder, some baking and cooking gear and spices - muffin pan and cutting boards, kitchen shears and knives, candles, a floor plant, kitchen and bathroom hand towels. Also some fun things like Dungeons and Dragons jewelry and tshirts, Baby Yoda socks and Star Wars tshirt, Ravens jewelry, video games, a Mickey Mouse wall clock, exercise clothes and a Capitals sweatshirt. Scott got dorm room items including a new desk chair, ink jet printer, pj pants and tshirts, socks, video games and his most exciting gift, a Virtual Reality Oculus game system. Turns out his high school friend Matt also got the system, so they have been busy playing games together all week. I also tried out the Google earth 3D tours of cities including Rome, Italy. It is pretty amazing-I felt like Godzilla walking around the buildings and scoping out the Vatican and Coliseum from up above and street level. I surprised Tom with some new shirts, including dress shirt, long sleeved waffle shirts and a Hershey Bear polo with the original logo, a new rain coat, one of the newly designed LED strip lights for his fish tank and some kitchen items like a new roasting pan. Scott got him a gift card to Pet Smart to buy more fish and tank items. But it looks like his favorite gift turned out to be the Star Trek Enterprise Tree Topper. Tom has received a Star Trek space ship ornament for every year for the past 29 years. Sadly we missed out on buying the very first ornament in the series and now they are incredibly expensive sold only through online buying groups like Ebay or at the Comic Con events. This year I did not see a space ship ornament at Hallmark, just the large expensive tree topper. I decided I better pick it up for him now because the items either sell out, or they don't make them anymore and if you do get one later, the price is sure to go up. Just like the 1st Star Trek Enterprise ornament. So I dug deep into my wallet and bought one for Tom back in November. He wanted to know how I could spend so much money at Hallmark-now he knows! He was also wondering why I did not get him a Star Trek ornament for St Nick's Day.  Instead he got an Xwing fighter ship from Star Wars. Over the years we have also picked up Star Wars ornaments(space theme) although Tom really just prefers the ships, not the characters. But we like it all, so he gets it no matter what.  He even gets a Star Trek space ship calendar for his office at work. Allison gets a dragon calendar and Scott got Mine Craft this year. And I made everyone a family photo for their desks, our family room and Scott's dorm fridge. Not as fancy as JCPenny photo studio, but I did what I could. We also subscribed to another year of Disney +. 

I was quite impressed with my surprises including a Raven's jersey from the kids with Justin Tucker, our kicker. I got a Lands End coat for all weather including rain, snow and wind which is usual for Maryland, some new gold hoop earrings and hanging jewelry cases. Tom picked up a tray table to place next to the couch. I was going to buy two but he beat me to it.  I also have a new, plastic wood Bluebird house so hopefully no squirrel or racoon will chew on this one plus sunflower seeds to refill my bird feeder. And Tom really surprised me with an electric bike! I certainly hope I can ride it! He assembled it in the basement and he and Scott brought it up just when we thought we were done! As a matter of fact, I brought Tom's Star Trek tree topper down in the afternoon since I had forgotten it in the back of the closet! After all that! He said he thought about trying to buy one after Christmas, but I warned him that most items sell out before Christmas and they don't get anymore. So if you can't find it right away, forget about it. He mentioned the tree topper was already selling for more online than the store price. Turns out, Hallmark got smart and decided not to put this item on sale as they are selling it again next year. Along with several Star Trek characters that interact with the Tree Topper. We discovered that the ship not only plays the Star Trek theme music and lights up with a crazy light show, but if you add the tv show characters, they speak to the ship and act out one of the series. And naturally you have to have a special cord which I just happened to have gotten on sale a few years ago. Tom broke down after Christmas and we bought Capt Kirk to hear him talk to the ship. Tom is mesmerized and so is our neighbor Dan at how hi tech it all is, however we discovered that since they are selling the items next year, none of it was on sale this year. Hallmark just put them away in storage. You can still buy them if you ask for it. For full price. Tom and I discovered that when we went post Christmas shopping at Hallmark for discounts. Right. 

So after all the gifts were opened and the paper and packages were cleaned up, Allison and I gathered up a few plate fulls of Christmas cookies and delivered them to our neighbors with our Christmas cards. It was fun to stop into their houses and wish them a Merry Christmas! We even took Cookie along with us, and actually stopped in for a quick visit to Dan and Gloria's house. After heading home it was time to get dinner together. Tom made us a beautiful and tasty standing rib roast. I added some Cherry Horseradish mashed potatoes and asparagus. Tom asked for a replacement of Cherry horseradish from Cherry Republic in Michigan. I got him a gift box from their store in Ann Arbor along with a sausage, some cherry mustard and cherry salsa plus cherry snack mix. We received a bottle of the cherry horseradish from my Uncle Joe and Aunt Kathy last Christmas that they picked up in Traverse City and Tom fell in love with the flavor. We sat down in the dining room to enjoy our meal and Allison decided we should keep up with our Christmas light tour before sitting down to dessert. Tom stayed behind so I drove our usual route. Unfortunately, our usual route had a few closures due to traffic accidents and a tree that came down with all the rain we had the day before and brought a power line down with it. So no power for part of the neighborhood on Christmas day! How sad.   And the tour of lights was not terribly exciting. One house usually puts on a light show, but cancelled due to COVID. I think we would have done just fine driving around our neighborhood as the lights nearby were terrific this year. Including our house! So when we finally made it back to the house, we sat down to enjoy my delicious Rum Cake and watch "Mulan" the live movie. Overall a wonderful Christmas celebration considering it was 2020. 

Allison had packed her car with all her gifts and headed home. I sat down to catch the online Christmas mass before going to bed since I had to work over the weekend. And the boys went off to enjoy their new video games. I decided to work on Saturday and Sunday to cover Christmas and New Year's Day. Our new company took over on Dec 1st and they don't pay for holidays. So this way I could work and still take off the holiday. And we were not too busy, so I really only had to work about a half day. Tom was off work and taking a break from school and so was Scott. They spent the following week running errands and doing some post Christmas shopping. Tom bought his own artificial Christmas tree for next year for his Star Trek/Star Wars collection. He got a tree from Home Depot for 70% off. He tried to find some Christmas decorations a few weeks before the big day at Home Depot including a lit garland for the front door, but they were already sold out. Looks like most stores had less holiday stock available. They didn't even sell live Christmas trees at Home Depot or Costco this year. Allison enjoyed her time off work as well by visiting with friends, playing lots of Dungeons and Dragons and visiting with Gabe. 

 I spent the week working up to Thursday and then was off for New Year's Day. We all celebrated New Year's Eve on our own. Tom and Scott headed down to Williamsburg early. They spent the evening touring around before heading over to Busch Gardens for New Years. In order to enter the park you still have to make reservations. I had reservations for Christmas Town on New Year's Day for the family, but figured the boys would enjoy going in early while the weather was nice and to enjoy the fireworks. Sadly we found out that we are actually Pass Holders and not Members of Busch Gardens. Guess they switched us over when the park sold several years ago. So even though I put in our membership numbers online that said the event was free for us, it actually cost a discounted price at $50.00 per person! They charged $70 for the event this year! What a way to end 2020-getting screwed all over again! So the boys skipped the event and went back to the hotel. Meanwhile, I was enjoying a quiet evening with a previous co worker from my old nursing home job. We hadn't seen each other since last year so she stopped over for dinner and a drink and lots of chatting. She also brought over her family's Christmas gifts since they live in Williamsburg and I told her I would drop them off on our way down. We had a great visit and I spent the evening watching HBO movies until midnite when the neighborhood shot off some fireworks and yelled Happy New Year! Big Event! All the special events and fireworks were cancelled this year in the area like First Night events. Allison celebrated New Year's with her friends and boyfriend Gabe, playing Dungeons and Dragons. 

On New Year's Day, Allison and I headed down to Busch Gardens. No Rose Bowl parade to watch this year. Fortunately traffic was light and we had a great drive down with just a little bit of rain. We decided since we had to pay for the entrance to the park for Christmas Town, that just Scott and I would go. It was drizzly and supposed to rain harder as the night went on and Allison did not feel like getting wet and risking catching a cold. Tom lost interest when he saw the entry fee. We were all rather upset about the whole event since we have continued to pay our monthly pass fees even when the park was closed. And the website did not specify that we would have to pay as a passholder. We felt the least the Park could do is offer the event to us for free or a bigger discount. Our neighbors also came down to enjoy the event and had the same idea that it would be no charge from the website. They also decided to skip the park. But Scott and I headed in on New Year's Day for the evening event. The park was pretty empty and they actually decided to close an hour earlier due to "inclement weather". Scott was able to ride all the open rollercoasters and we took the train a few times around the park. We enjoyed the decorations, although limited but missed most of the shows. But we enjoyed the holiday music and food in the park, walking through the shops and everyone there was so nice. A young guy even offered to buy me a cookie! But I turned him down. I am a big girl and can buy my own cookies! While Scott and I wandered through the park, Tom and Allison met with our neighbors in our hotel lobby and enjoyed take out dinner and drinks from Outback. On Saturday, our family walked through Williamsburg before heading home in separate cars. Allison and I picked up dinner while Tom and Scott picked up Cookie. They had dropped her off at our friend's house on New Year's Eve before heading down to Williamsburg. Looks like Cookie had a wonderful time visiting with their dog Ripley. The two ended up chasing the flocks of geese at the nearby park!

We finished up our holiday weekend cheering on the Ravens -looks like our football team is headed to the semi finals by the skin of their teeth! We will be watching next weekend. I also had to drop some items off to my mom so I stopped into Kohls to spend my Kohl's Bucks and look for any after Christmas bargains. 

I'll be starting the New Year with the COVID vaccine scheduled next Friday, Jan 8th,  at my facility. Tom plans on going back into work. Allison started back to work on Sunday-finance has a different schedule than everyone else and that is why we went down to the Park earlier. Scott will start classes online on January 11th this year-he usually would be back to school the first Monday in January. Western decided to push off the return to campus date until January 15th, over MLK weekend. So he gets an extended break this year. We love having him around! He spent a day sending out his resume for any possible summer engineering internships. Not sure what 2021 will bring, but it has to be better than 2020!

Want to Thank All family members for Holiday Greetings and Gifts. Tom and I used our Christmas money from Mom and Dad Seitz to upgrade our kitchen gas stove that has more top burners. We have had our previous stove for 24 years when we moved in the house and have wanted to upgrade for awhile. We just could not agree on the type of stove as Tom wanted to switch to Convection, but I still like the gas oven and our electric oven for cooking.  We had the new oven delivered the day after Christmas. So far it works great!