CHRISTMAS FOR EACH GENERATION

Just spent 4 days with our sons family in Colorado. We meant to leave Wednesday but watching the weather reports decided to leave Monday & stop for the night at Colby, KS. Glad we did!!!! At breakfast Tues. morning we ate with two other couples about our age heading for their kids in Colorado from K.C., MO & St. Louis, MO and we from Topeka, Kansas Visiting we found out we had all gone through the same process. Gonna leave Wed., then Tues, then Monday like us. We just made it here about 1pm Tues. before the snow started. A beautiful, no wind, gentle, big snow flakes falling for two days that accumulated to about 8 inches. Since I didn't have to clean the sidewalk I loved it. It was 8 degrees Thursday when we left the house at 11:30pm for Midnight Mass Christmas eve. at their church. Their dry air & little or no wind doesn't make it feel that cold. We had such a good time but each generation is different. This is the technology age & so we didn't actually spend much quality time with the kids (7th grade- High School Senior) because they always had their nose and fingers on one of the many technical things out there now. However, even as a kid we never felt poor because no one else had much either. I don't remember spending 'Quality" time with my grandparents on holidays either. We were out playing with the cousins doing something. It is us grandparents that need to be the one to think of their ages and get their attention with something we did as kids and interest them in other things we can do together OR learn that new stuff out there they know all about.

Christmas when I grew up on the farm in the late 30's & early 40's as a kid it was not surprising when you got coal or corn cobs in your sock from Santa because he was told I hadn't been a good girl. Those were depression years so we felt lucky to get one toy under the tree and that could be something homemade by your parents. It was still a wonderful life and I'm glad I grew up in a family that had to be "FRUGILE" because it taught me that stuff out there is just STUFF. How long will it take before it lays around and you never play with or use it again. You buy lots of things now because that is the times. Keeping up with the neighbors kids.

Christmas is different for each generation. When we raised our kids "Fisher Price Toys" had just came out and were so cute. Birthday & Christmas each of the 4 kids would get a house, barn, school house, playground or some other piece of Fisher Price while they were little. I really think we were buying because we didn't have those cute things & we loved them more than the kids. Of course by the time you bought a present for the grandparents, aunts & uncles & cousins your funds were exhausted but I knew how much we could afford to spend and we NEVER borrowed. Many times when we were first married and kids were small, Mom & Dad (us) never got a gift from each other because there wasn't any extra money. We survived and still together over 50 years. It seems to me the world is putting too much emphasis on things. Boy, that sounds like an old foggie doesn't it? Happy New Year.