Woke up this morning and thought we had been transported back three years to Ottawa. But wait, three years ago in Ottawa there was no snow. Not now in Maryland, nor in NJ nor in Mass. nor in.....NY or IL either I imagine. We're getting clobbered. But it's Saturday, the third Saturday it's snowed. What's happened to snow days?
We kept alive one Christmas tradition this year, by taking the shortcut on putting up the tree and hoping it would be all right. Three days later, after being all decorated it fell down. We also started another by joining the world of outside lighting. Slowly and cautiously. We have a small tree outside the house lit up.
Joe came out and helped decorate the tree. He had taken the day off to take his GRE's and did very well, well enough to ensure spots in several programs he will be applying to. Then, the next day he forwarded us his e-mail acceptance from Oxford! The one in the U.K.! Wow. Congrats. He is applying for a Masters Degree program in Economics. Margaret has yet to hear from her applications for new jobs. She had traveled up to Providence for an interview at RISD, but has not heard back. She keeps applying and will eventually get a new job. We had a good visit with Annie around Thanksgiving and she organized a cheap ticket for coming home for Christmas (she had to work Thanksgiving. She's also trying to figure out how to get back to China next summer.
We also had a good visit from Peter, for a night, who was down here to stop in to see Janet's cousin who is ill.
Other news: John and Mary went to a guitar class for Christmas songs! Margaret went to the movie and recommends The Road. And I got together briefly with Jeffrey yesterday to make sure he had Grandma's Christmas card. He and Melodie are traveling north next week.
Spoke with Grandma, Andrew (actually Lur) and David a couple of times. Everyone is fine and busy. Grandma had a nice visit from Caroline Rousch, the mother of Annie's Pomfret roommate.
The Christmas cards are coming in and the shopping bags are coming in through the front door. Today would have been more shopping and mailing, but looks like it's an indoors day for cleaning up and organizing and wrapping and writing the weekly letter!!
One thing I have learned about writing this "letter" is how hard it is to keep contributing each week. Pop had a work ethic and discipline that didn't pass on to the next generation. At least this next generation unit. Also on my to-do list today is to do the Christmas letter. We'll see.
Merry Christmas to all of you. Love from down here.
