CHRISTMAS IS COMING (and so is Thanksgiving)!

I love love Christmas but everyone is coming for Thanksgiving (except for one daughter and her family) and no one will be here for Christmas.  I was feeling blue about that but now I am decorting and baking right now because the;y all want Christmas for thanksgiving. I have already put up five trees and I wasn't even going to decorate at all!  Oh MY!  Now today I will be making homemade caramel popcorn balls and white chocolate popcorn. I need to buy and wrap gifts for the daughters who are coming from Washington and Wyoming.  It is a task to think of gifts for each family member.  Everyone, my age, just gives their adult kids money for Christmas.  I hate doing that because I don't want to be liked just because I am a cash cow.  I like to be thoughtful about each gift.  My Mom would always buy us kids the SAME thing every year:  a can of tennis ball, a box of turtles, soap on a rope, a book or game, a dress.  Mom would buy it in bulk and put them out on our designated couch in the living room.  Mom and Dad would make everything magical with always white flocked tree covered in red balls and ornaments.  Mom would make us decorate the tree and would urge us to cover every branch with an ornament.