Only three more days until Christmas. Bret called last night. His packages both arrived. However, he sounded so sad and I asked him what was wrong. He told me that his friends' (Earl and Janelle) daughter, Stephanie, who was only 14, was killed in an automobile accident on the way to school on Tuesday. Everyone is, of course, devastated. All I could do was tell him that I loved him, express my sympathy and tell him that I would put the family on the prayer chain at church. Which I did. Would you all pray for this cirle of people too. The funeral is Friday. I can't thin of any more sad a Christmas.

On a lighter note, I took Mother to the eye doctor today and the news is good there. She is stable and he is very pleased. We are always so grateful after the Macular Degeneration episode. She said that she sees about as well distance wise without her glasses as with. That is pretty amazing for an 89 year old woman.

I cleaned the refrigerator and freezer today. Now I will have room for Christmas stuff. We will try to eat up the odds and ends before Saturday. I did remember to take out the ham and put it in the fridge to thaw. Most things really have to be prepared on Saturday or Sunday.

Cadfael's Book of Days said today. "While you live, there is no way of escape from your part in humanity."

I remember a Christmas years ago when living in Santa Ana Heights. My neighbor and I went out to get our trees. We took our pickup. Our plan was to get trees about our height. She was a bit shorter than I, so our plan was for trees about 5 and a half to 6 feet. But when we got into the lot they look different and we were trying to look at shape and fullness and holding our hands up to our foreheads but we must have slanted our hands up. When we got home, those trees were huge and we were totally surprised. My ex and her husband had to cut some off of the bottom so they would stand up in the livingroom. But shey sure were pretty.

Have a nice Thursday. We shop in the morning.

Love

Mary