Have a Holly Jolly Christmas

♪♫♪♫It's the most wonderful time of the year ♫♪♫♪ Merry Christmas. I hope this finds you well. It has been a nice holiday season here. The weather has been unexpectedly nice. Warmer than last year which was a real stinker of ice and snow and cold. I was off work today as an extra day off work gave us. Some say it is because some staff have to work New Year's Day. Who knows. It could be because there is nothing in the building because of construction. It could be because they took 2 years worth of furlough days from us. I have no idea. I am not going to question it. I am just enjoying it!!

So with the extra day off and our holiday tomorrow and Monday and the day after New Years I will only be working 1 day next week. Which means I am off 10 of the next 11 days. I will not feel like going back to work after that I am afraid.

This year we have decided to not give presents. I feel bad when someone gives me a gift and I have nothing to give them back. But I have no money. I keep waiting for it all to turn around for me but so far we are still heading in the same direction. I still cry when I go to the grocery store. I still freak out when I try to pay bills. I spend some time one step ahead of having something shut off. I try not to let it get to me. But it is hard. I will not lie that I feel pangs of jealousy when people talk about taking trips or buying $135 boots for Christmas and I know that I will sit in my house and not have a thing to give my son or my mother. But in other ways it only shows me how obscene the gift giving can get. Do you monitor your love by how much you spend on someone? It almost seems that way to me. The 3 of us will have a nice meal and that will be that. Really what more do you need than to be together?

I still worry about my mother. This coming year she will either get money from her law suit or she will have to leave her house. Her money is almost gone. I am not sure what she is thinking. I tried to have her move in here and that did not happen but soon she will not have a choice. She will not have the money to stay in her house. I pray every day that she gets the closure she deserves from this lawsuit. She does not need to get rich. She just needs to have the money to live her simple life without fear. And to win the law suit would give her the greatest vindication that my father's death was needless and preventable. But all in all she is doing so much better than she has in the past.

Dear son has been so busy that I rarely see him. He is working all the time. It seems like he walks in the door and crawls into bed only to wake up and go all over again in a few short hours. He is exhausted but doing well. Working 2 jobs, full time college student, shooting a scene in a film, working a holiday party, rehearsing a musical. You could say he was a LITTLE busy. I am always so proud of him. It is a blessing that he understands the money and no presents thing. He grew up with mountains of gifts and yearly trips to Walt Disney World. I wonder what he really must be thinking. Bless his heart. He is a good guy.

Me? I have been working and coming home. Same old thing. Not exciting but okay I think.

Please let me take this time to wish you a joyous holiday season celebrating whatever holiday  you enjoy. This is the time of year when families gather and love is shared. May you feel the love surround you and may everything you put out into the universe come back to you in abundance. ♥ And dad...you are forever in our thoughts.