On the morning of Saturday, December 30 I visited the local Polish deli to stock up on sausages and cheese, then prepared lunch platters for Grant and Evelyn, who were coming by early. I like it when they can visit the entire day and we can relax and chat over lunch. They arrived at 12:30 while I was still cutting up the meat. Perfect timing! They brought their sleigh of gifts inside while I finished getting lunch ready. The kitchen table looked like this:

Six types of sausage, three cheeses, plus sushi, artichoke hearts, pickles and olives. I put out hot tempura shrimp after. Delicious!

Evelyn and Grant. I had to bring down a box of tissues since their noses started to run when they ate the wasabi.

Underneath the Christmas tree, after Grant, Evelyn and Mark had brought all their presents

Underneath the tree

The stockings

Happy Mark with some jam he pulled from his stocking. Evelyn is unwrapping some treats for Trooper, who was staying with his grandparents, the Paceks, for the day.

Santa knows that Mark likes maple syrup

After all the presents were unwrapped I told Grant that there was still another one for him, but it was underneath a different tree. I placed it against the wall under my blue tree on my lower landing. Grant found it and brought it upstairs to unwrap.

Opening the laptop box

About to uncover the laptop within

Christmas table just before dinner

After a long and happy day with Evelyn and Grant

During my first Christmas dinner, held on December 23 in Bedford, we opened our Christmas crackers and put on our hats and looked to see what prize we got inside. I got a small magnifying glass and Patsy got a heart keychain. At the end of dinner, Mark’s grandnephew (and Patsy’s grandson) Henry gathered up all the prizes for himself, yet he thoughtfully drew me a picture and gave me the heart keychain. Could he have overheard me talking about my Christmas tree, which was covered in silver decorations? When I got home on December 28 I put the heart on the tree.


One Response
So precious a gift as it had love behind it. Thank you for sharing this with us, Craig.
P xxxooo