I’m pretty sure I’ve used this title somewhere before, but it’s such a great one I’m going for it again. Christmas has come and gone. It was a good one with my son and beautiful daughter in law staying with us. We celebrated my son’s birthday, did a nostalgic visit to his old high school, had some great meals out and just enjoyed being together. We also had friends over on Christmas day and played a brutal game of “Estimation” which I lost. But all that was the good stuff.

The bad stuff was the fact that my daughter and son in law and the little people in their house didn’t come for Christmas. Even though I just had a month with them in Idaho I still longed for them. Each Christmas activity and event is better when seen through the eyes of a child. Christmas is magical with children. Without them it’s fun and enjoyable, but the magic escapes me.

Now the ugly is all about me and wanting to please everyone. It is known as worry and self absorption and other even less likable characteristics of my personality. I wanted my house clean and went so far as to do the work myself. I vacuumed and dusted and scrubbed bathrooms. I also planned meals. I pulled out old favorites and a few new ones too. But in spite of all that cleaning and planning my best and most reliable dinner roll recipe flopped. I finally realized that I left the sugar out or them because I was trying to do too many things at once and, well, I just did. They looked great until I baked them and then they had a sullen look about them. They were hard and tasted like sheetrock. Bleh.

And here is the best ugly of all. Right during the festive Christmas dinner set with pretty red plates and all, a spider came rapelling down over my guest’s head. My son gallantly ran around the table and trapped it with his festive dinner napkin. !@@#$%

New Year’s is near. I’m not cleaning or cooking anything special. Let the spiders come. They can haul the whole house off if they want. I’m going to stay in my jammies and eat chocolate.