Voices from the Heartland: Merry Christmas 2013

Our family would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2014.

Haven't posted on this blog much during December due to family visiting plus my bronchitis which is finally over. Been finishing up shopping and getting packages in the mail for my granddaughters in the Denver area. Over the weekend my youngest daughter, Heather, was here from Denver -- we spent time baking Christmas cookies and celebrating an early Christmas. She has been helping me bake Christmas cookies from the time she was little. We always baked Santa cookies on Christmas Eve and the three kids would decorate them. Still using the same cream cheese sugar cookie recipe I discovered when we lived in Yucaipa, CA, back in the 80's.

In California we would cut down our own tree as the tree farm was located right next to an orange grove. Now I have the same type of tree we used to cut down but it is artificial as cut trees here are not a kind I like. With my youngest daughter here the tree was finished -- this year it is a nostalgic tree with unbreakable ornaments after finding the boxes of unbreakable ornaments from when the kids were little until now and thought it would be neat to have tree with ornaments from down through the years including my OU ornaments -- bought one today to add to the collection.