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Thank ya'll for the added cheer! Vickie- Thank you. Yes we did have some neighbor children get their pictures made here yesterday. The R/W/B plumes came from probably Hobby Lobby a couple of years ago. I'm pretty good at saving things from year to year like most pack rats. We went out to the parade, pinwheels twirling in the wind on the tops of our heads. The Village newsletter photographer came and photographed me and Hubs standing out there looking like the fat and older version of "4th of July Barbie and Ken". We got all kinds of candy thrown ***AT**** us. LOL The neighbors inquired about how much coffee we had drank that morning. I think they are planning an INTERVENTION for sure now. Ya'll there was no marching band, no drum chore, nothing that made me hop the barracades and join the parade. How can you get parade happy without the sound of sweaty feet marching in white boots???? No veterans, no rifle chore. There was not one baton except on the belts of the policemen (we wont go there). My New Orleans exposure wanted the opporitunity to grab a handkercheif and wave it around and prance along after the a band. BUT NO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O. Hubs says that I should insist on being on the parade committee next year. I'm half joking because we are but a little Village and not a city. But even a BOOM BOX playing "Stars and Strips Forever" would have helped. Life needs Music as a backdrop. Sweet karen- when things are not clicking, you have got to change the Spiritual environment. Put on the music that appeals to the proper mood that you need to be in. Hubs installed speakers throughout the house a couple of years ago (he crashed through the ceiling but that is another story). He even put them on the front and back porches. When I need to garden out front, I play nature music and the song "What A Wonderful World'. If I need to reflect on my grandbabylove, I play Connie Talbot. If I need to pray, I play Spiritual music. Being around my house is like being in a dramatic soap opera without the organ music. (Ya have to draw the line somewhere, LOL). But I had myself all jacked up for this parade thingy by watching videos of marching bands on the Internet. When I am truly down and out I usually tell Hubs, "I just cant hear the music lately". But search because music can be powerful. Heaven is supposed to be full of LIVE music!!!! Anywho, we went to the fireworks display and guess what? The fireworks Company had huge speakers with contemporary Patriotic songs!!!! It was a mezmerising (sp?) light show. I cant say that I got the whole 1776 feel for what happened but I can assure you those Freedom Fighters were sweatin' in July.

Both menus sound great. I’m sorry that your mother isn’t doing well but glad that you get to celebrate. My mother turned 80 in the throes of the pandemic (fall 2020). We had a Zoom call. Nice that we got to see her but not very celebratory. I can all but garantee that anything you do, and anything you serve, will be appreciated. If she’s anything like my mother, she just wants to spend time with her people. Everything else is secondary.

I liked Christmas as a child, but once I became an adult, it was more stressful than anything else, and my mother took it too seriously. She felt compelled to have everyone together for Christmas, and this became more difficult when the family got larger and had other places to go. I left home at 18, and so after that, I returned as a guest. I have no holiday traditions of my own, although I used to celebrate the summer solstice when I lived in Venice, as that was a good time to have a party there. When I did visit my parents for Christmas and/or Thanksgiving, I would do much of the cooking, partly because my mother did not like to do it and partly because I was better at it, and my nieces especially appreciated it. I found exchanging gifts to be more stressful than enjoyable, and so I did not like that as an adult. We sometimes played board games, and I did enjoy that. As a child, we alternated having Christmas at my parents' house and at my maternal grandparents' house. My mother was an only child, and so her parents were always with us at holidays. My father had two older brothers and an older sister, and we never celebrated any holidays with them. His sister had moved to New Mexico, and we almost never saw her at all. His two brothers had married two sisters, and so they were very close to each other but not to us. Since their children were double first cousins, they were much like one family (and closer to each other in ages). My father's family was not big on Christmas, partly because his sister had converted to Jehovah's Witness (because of her husband), and she had converted my grandmother. I believe that JWs do not celebrate Christmas, as I remember, but my grandmother was not the typical JW. In fact, being inventive (with a couple of patents under her belt), she had created her own version of the religion, probably from her imagination, which was far from conventional. No one knew where she got her ideas, but she did enjoy going out and witnessing. However, when the other JWs found out what she was telling others, they tried to get her to stop witnessing, but to no avail. I was told not to listen to my grandmother because she was "off her rocker," but I found her stories entertaining and imaginative. My grandmother owned the waterworks in town because my grandfather (who died before I was born) and his father had dug a bunch of artesian wells, and so the people in town pretty much had to put up with her, even though they thought she was a bit crazy. She never forced people to pay their water bills, and so my father had to do that for her. She thought water should be free. Anyway, my father's side of the family did not celebrate Christmas in a conventional way.