My best Christmas present is that on the day after Christmas my Mom came to visit and the day she planned to go back, there was snow and ice at her home in WV, so she ended up staying another week.  Almost 3 weeks.  That is the longest time we have been together since I left home thirty years ago.  I told her this morning, it takes the first week just to work all the kinks out.  It has been nice.

I have not even taken down my tree! Didn’t want to get into that big mess during her visit, but also I just wasn’t finished enjoying it.  In the past I have been known to take it down the night of Christmas some years, because commercially “Christmas” is so overdone and shoved down our throats starting in October these days.  I have an aversion to all of the pressures of Christmas and so I tend to rebel against the “expectations”.  Leaving the tree up and enjoying it after all of that was over with, has been pleasant for me, though I am sure my family is more than ready to see it go.  It’s artificial, obviously, else it would pose a fire hazard.

We have had a very relaxed time, Mom and me, which was the main purpose.   We even played SCRABBLE while she was here!  She read a whole book.  I’ve never seen her sit still that long.  She is a busy beaver.  My hubby has nicknamed her Judy-jump-up.  She has slowed down only a little since my Dad passed, mostly because she still has two young adults living in her house.  As long as she has someone to do for, she wants to be “doing”.

When you live some distance from your loved ones, it is rare to have extended time together, and I guess as both my Mom and I have aged, I become more aware each time we do see each other, that the get-togethers are numbered.  It makes you appreciate them all the more.  I am so glad, though, that my Mom is a believer and that we can part knowing that, no matter what, we will be together again.  For me it’s been nice even to be able to just talk, or even to enjoy each doing our own thing, being in the same room together.

She also got to spend a couple of days with her best, life-long friend Gail, while she was here.

I guess this year my usual New Years ruminations and contemplations have been delayed by this visit, so I’m just now getting to that.  I have a lot to be thankful for, and have learned new lessons.  We don’t know what 2014 holds in store, but ready or not, it is in full swing.

Thank You, Lord for my Mama. She loves her kids as fiercely as any mother ever could.  Thank you for my aunt and uncles that still look out for her.  Bless her days, give her peace and rest and hear her prayers, Lord.

Mama, may the Lord watch between me and thee while we are apart one from another!

Letting my widowed Mom go back to her own life might be nearly as hard as letting my kids go when they will leave the nest.  Don’t know, I have eight months yet before chapter one of that experience comes.  May the Lord prepare us all for whatever lies ahead for each of us in the coming year.