Christmas Day

Merry Christmas, dear readers. I had awakened earlier but got up when I heard Dad walk Mom to the den. Helped Mom with pills and breakfast then had my own breakfast. Kurt was curious what it tasted like. So he tried a bite and thought it tasted like green hay. Guess I'm just used to it. I darned the hole in my sock that cuts off the circulation to my big toe. That was a relief. I read through my e-mail, deleting most of it. Thankfully there aren't any new audios this week. I got out the vacuum to sweep the livingroom rug for gift giving. But I couldn't stop there. i did the diningroom, den, kitchen, utility room, hallway, foyer and two bedrooms. The kitchen floor has a big and growing hole in it and the pieces travel all over the house. I wrapped a few more presents. Dad was looking for some presents that he bought at the mall and were wrapped there. In the process of helping him look, I found a paraffin bath under a chair in the living room (amidst other stuff). It bothered me because that is what I bought Mom for Christmas. William came over in the afternoon, just as I was getting ready to wrap his present. Kurt got him out of the room so I could finish. He told me that Mom used to use the paraffin bath but hadn't in so long that he had forgotten they had it.
Chris put chicken and rice in the oven for dinner. Faye and Kevin came over a little later. Faye and I made corn casserole and it went in with the chicken. Faye set the table. I plugged in the bath to see if it still worked. The corn casserole got started late, but it finished just after we all sat down and did the Bible reading and said the prayer. The eight of us ate dinner together. Mom's glass slipped and broke on the table. Dad's plate of food got thrown away 'cause it might have had slivers of glass in it. There was water everywhere. But no one was hurt. After dinner Dad got out his accordion and played Christmas carols. All too soon the music was over and we started opening gifts. There were a lot of gifts and it took a while.

We got stuff we wanted (as far as I could tell), but the gift of the evening was the laptop Kurt got. It came as a complete surprise. He thought it was a cooling tray for his old over-heated laptop. But this computer is really cool, it has a lighted keyboard and a terabyte of memory. The instructions claimed it had to be plugged in for three hours before first use, so he couldn't explore it right away. Mom got a pair of cordless headphones so that she could hear the TV but Dad couldn't. He finds it distracting. The headphones were beautifully wrapped. It was a shame to open it. But she did, or someone helped her. Faye got it set up with the converter box in the den. Faye got a very nice quilted scarf for Christmas. I won't say who gave it to her, just that the more I saw it on her, the more I liked it. I tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn't part. I checked on the paraffin bath occasionally and the melting was going VERY slowly. Maybe that is why they stopped using it. There wasn't much wax in it so I added one of the replacement bars. I even cut it up with a knife, and tried using a hairdryer to hasten the heating process. Finally, it was 11 pm and way past Mom's bedtime. I put her hand in the melted part of the wax several times, then used a baggie and a mitt from the new one to keep it warm while I put her to bed. When I came out, Chris and I got out the hide-a-bed and went to sleep, without blogging. Kurt told me later he was staying up waiting to read the post.