Winding down 2013

I hope everyone is having a happy and safe holiday season.  

It's been a busy/different holiday season down here for us.  

I'd like to say it has been all fun & games, but at least it has been quiet.  I have all sorts of time off and I was hoping to get some chores done, but I don't seem to have accomplished half of what I had set out to do.  This year has been a bit off for us.  With SIL in the hospital, the Thanksgiving holiday was pretty low key.  We did not have the normal celebration at our house and spent some time at the hospital with SIL.  We did get to celebrate some of the week with Rebecca's folks and my brother, but it was different from what we have done for years.  With SIL getting out of hospital, we figured Christmas was going to be different as well.  Even though she is back home, she still needs some hands-on care and someone needs to stay with her during the day/night.  We have a caregiver staying for part of the day and my wife has taken the night shift.  I have even tried to take a shift or two to help out.  Momma was pretty overloaded so I attempted to pick up the slack for Xmas plans.  Organized/acquired most of the gifts, arranged for Christmas dinner, did the decorations/lights, even made an effort to clean the house (or at least stay two steps ahead of the dogs).  Managed to pull it off, but it is not to the same scale as we have had in the past.  We had a low-key celebration at our house with my parents and son (DIL was sick) and SIL (she is able to get out, but very tired).  No pictures this year, just a nice time with the family.  

I got the gift shopping done but it was almost up to the last minute.  As usual, I set out with one thing in mind and wind up with a totally different gift idea for people.  I envy people who are organized and disciplined enough to have their shopping done by Thanksgiving.  I keep telling myself I need to do better but somehow I repeat the same saga every year.   I also wind up getting too many gifts.  Think I find the perfect gift for nephew A or brother only to find something better three stores down.  I typically wind up with several ungifted gifts at the end that I wind up taking back or giving next year (still have three gifts left over from last year).  Anybody looking for a dancing Flamingo with a Santa hat?  

Maybe it is a factor of getting older or how the families are spreading out, but I am glad we had the time/opportunity to share the day, but it was definitely a bit more sedate that prior years.  At least the dogs have been getting plenty of attention.  All this time off has given me the opportunity to catch up on my reading and Netflix queue.  Going to be hard to go back to work after New Years.  

My Airstream group is having their annual New Years rally.  The difference is that there is a different team running the rally and they picked a new spot.  No longer the old RV ranch out west of here, but a new campground that is located about 3 miles away from where my trailer is currently parked.  Will probably take me longer to hook up the trailer that it will to drive over there.  I will be attending with just the dogs as momma will still be keeping an eye on her sister.  One good thing about this being close is that it is a short hop over to visit/sit with sister to give momma a much needed break.  I am looking forward to a fairly low key New Years celebration - the group is fairly sedate when it comes to partying.  Will be ringing in the new year with Champagne and black eyed peas. 

Happy New Year.