December newsletter

Wow! We have Christmas already behind us and if I still want to write a December newsletter, I only have a couple days left. Christmas was a quiet celebration for us. Christina unfortunately came down with the stomach flu the night before Christmas Eve and had a fever the next day. Therefore I stayed home with her while the others went to church for the Christmas pageant. I read "The Night Before Christmas" to her and she fell back asleep,  so I had a little time to get myself ready and into the Christmas spirit. Usually, Christmas Eve is such a busy day that I feel and probably look like a hastily torn open present myself.

This year I decided to wear for the first time my great- grandmother's blouse that was given to me by my father's cousin Heide. My great-grandmother had this blouse made for her silver wedding anniversary and had the seamstress use lace from her wedding dress to make it.  It fits me perfectly and with all the see-through lace, it is definitely the sexiest blouse that I own. I also have my great-grandmother's wedding ring to wear with it and it was wonderful to be able to wear it all for Christmas. My great-grandmother died when I was 1 year old so I really do not remember her, but I think I definitely have some of her genes. She was also very tall and slender and loved to travel.

When Christina woke up, she managed to keep down a little Tylenol and was feeling better for the opening of the presents. Granted she was not quite as wild as Cecile who could not keep herself from jumping up and down from excitement. David's parents and David's brother spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with us. Christmas dinner this year was pork loin with rosemary, spiced red cabbage and baked potatoes followed by David's mother's famous cherry pie.

The weather here in Kansas was sunny and warm for Christmas. Everyone here is hoping for snow, but nothing is on the horizon. It is great weather for taking walks, however. On a recent walk across one of the many little remote cemeteries in the countryside, we were musing about the foresight that the practical people in Kansas display. Gravestones were already placed with only the birthdates  - to be completed with the day of death when the day comes. Of course, here a cemetery plot does not cost anything and space is freely available.

Some small animal had been eating the horse's treats in our old barn. David placed a live trap with a few of the treats inside. Unfortunately, he had not expected to catch a skunk. A live skunk in a trap is really not want you want to have in your barn. David finally decided to shoot it in the trap. The skunk did not spray him, but spray it did and the barn smells unbelievably bad. Yesterday the south wind carried this incredible smell all the way to the house, today the wind comes out of the north again, thank goodness. Now we still have to catch the egg thief in the henhouse which I think is yet another small furry animal.

Otherwise life on the farm is calm und uneventful. We'll be celebrating New Year's Eve at David's cousin's house with lots of other cousins from near and far. It will be a game night for sure and since everyone there knows David's favorite card game Pinochle, we'll be playing many hands until midnight.

Have a great start into 2004!  I promise the newsletters will continue next year.