It's The Holiday Season

Das Gravy Boot.

Technical Difficulties, Pls Stand By.

Entry 3.    4:40

Glitchy app today. I have posted 3x and the first two went *poof.* 

Jenny is not doing well. She ate a full meal last night, but lost it all later.  Today, she has been barely functional. I did get her to Macy's Furniture Store, but it was all she could do to walk the store. She has been in repose the rest of the day.

We went to Macy's trying to find a sideboard.  We looked elsewhere, but eventually settled on Ikea--it was an emergency. Our house does not have space to display all of our Christmas gifts. Ikea had one we could order and pick up curbside. Nothing special, but it will do in a pinch..  We have 10 bins, and several boxes of things, 31 years of accumulated junk. Given Jenny's ill-health, everything and everyone is going all-out to make this holiday memorable. It's more for the kids than Jenny, if you think about it. So Abby, in her stubbornness and lack of faith in my mechanical ability, is building the Ikea sideboard.

One special treat today: coming in the door from Ikea, I surprised Jenny who was on the phone with el pinché. Christmas ⛄🎄 miracles abound.

Last night, Thanksgiving, was a tremendous hit. People loved the bar and the family warmth and positive energy was thick in the air.

Entry 2     6:08 p.m.

It's hard watching. Very hard watching. The most important person in my life for so long, someone who knows me better than anyone will ever know me, is dying. She is reduced to strategizing how she will make the Swiss Christmas cookies that Bea used to make, and that she made too for us. Zimtsterne, chräbeli, shortbread, marzipan, mailänderli und brunsli are the cookies..  Fortunately, Jenny and her sisters have split up the making of the cookies this year. Even so, Jenny will be sitting in a chair to bake the mailänderli and shortbread this year. Each Sunday of Advent, everyone gets one of each cookie, a slice of Swiss fruit cake, and a mandarin orange after dinner, when we exchange gifts. An aside, Jenny is the family master of marzipan, but what a lot of work it is to make. She nailed it every time she made it, I often pinch hit on the stirring of the concoction. Her shapes were perfect representations of pears, bananas, apples and oranges, etc. She won't likely make those again.

Tomorrow we get our tree--the earliest time we have done so that I remember. We are getting a tall tree. I am pulling for a 10 footer. We have so many ornaments, I am excited to be able to have them all spread out. I am surprised and relieved there has been no talk of a tree with candles, another Swiss tradition we did at Omi's every year and that I loved but am too afraid to attempt. [I discovered pictures of the time we did it at our home in Renton, lit candles on a tree, back in 2007. I had blocked that from memory.]

Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent, even though Advent doesn't begin until December 1. There have to be four Sundays of advent, so logic be damned. For 30 years we have exchanged gifts each of the four Sundays before Christmas, a Swiss tradition. We eat stollen with marzipan with our breakfast, which are the most sumptuous of the year. I do love the ritual and all the delicious food. Its hard without Omi around as the center of the family. Advent Sundays with Omi meant Sunday dinner with her. She made Christmas such a warm and inviting time, we like to honor that. I have been shopping for advent gifts for the girls since October. Crate and Barrel and Overstock.com, really came through.