Snowbird Christmas

'Tis the day after Christmas, so what did we do to celebrate the holiday? We decorated our tree right after Thanksgiving.



And we walked around Valle del Oro, looking at the lights people put up.



One of our neighbors had a small party for the RVers on our road who have been coming to the same place for several years.

We enjoyed spending time with Larry and Barbara and Vern and Jane



with Pat and Lois and Hollis



and, of course, with Isabel and Joe, who brought us all together.


Christmas Eve, we attended the 6 pm service at Epiphany in Tempe. Before the service began, I took a photo of the chapel.



John was the celebrant at that service. Usually, I don't take pictures during the worship service, but the children of the congregation had portrayed the Gospel reading and lots of people were using the cameras. So I took one a few minutes later of the whole worship party.



This is the nativity set at the front of the church, as well as the manger where baby Jesus slept during the children's play.



Christmas morning, John and I opened our gifts. Here he is with a musical CD sent by our cousins in Sweden.



We talked to both our sons' families, then we joined with several hundred other residents here for Christmas dinner. Here is our empty table after we put out our dishes.



And the crowd beginning to gather.



And the friends we sat with. Sam and JoAnn



and Vern and Jane



It has been a good Christmas, though we miss seeing our children and grandchildren. Hope you all had a good Christmas, as well.

Santa's Visit

Santa came to our house on Monday. I guess people over the age of 60 are practical folks. We didn't get a toilet like Barbara and Ron or an ipad like Jim and Gayle. We had planned to get a new mattress for Christmas. That is until our neighbor Vern volunteered to build some drawers for our kitchen. If you remember, we moved into this new Mobile Suites in October and discovered there were no drawers in the kitchen. Since Santa's visit, that has been corrected.

We began with this empty space where there would have been a dishwasher if we hadn't eliminated that from our order. At the factory, they had replaced the dishwasher with a slide-out wastebasket. We quickly moved the wastebasket and were left with empty storage space. (There was a cabinet door there.)



A week or so ago, Vern brought these drawers and frame.



And Monday, he arrived to install them.



Here are the drawer slides, waiting for the drawers.



And here are the drawers in place, just waiting for me to fill them.



It didn't take me any time to do just that. Finally, the knives, forks and spoons, as well as other cooking tools and some pans were sitting the drawers, within easy reach when I cook or put away the clean dishes. Yea!



In the next week or so, Vern will return with drawer fronts that match our other cabinets. That will be nice. But we're both happy campers, now. We feel like our new home is finally complete.

We're Done!

Today, we finished our Christmas shopping. We got started right after Thanksgiving by shopping at the Epiphany boutique. We headed out to the mall a few days later. Some items were ordered online. Yesterday we mailed a box of gifts to our son and family in New Hampshire. And today we finished shopping for our Colorado family. I went online to order a e-gift card and we scoured the Country Store. This is an assembly of merchants who offer their wares here at the resort every Thursday through the winter. I don't think we were the only people doing holiday shopping today. It was pretty busy.



It is amazing how many different types of products are on sale. There are scarves for your favorite football team



musical instruments made out of discarded materials



baseball hats for anyone and everyone



women's scarves



flowers, both fresh and artificial



lots and lots and lots of jewelry



and purses of every size, shape and color.



You can buy fresh vegetables



(what is special about these, do you imagine?),



get your hair cut



or prepare to share you adult beverages with others.



We went home to get a couple of knives so this fellow could sharpen them for us. Would you believe, he chased us halfway across the parking lot to give us a refund of $5 because he overcharged us? Now that is an honest businessman we will visit again!



Don't you love the Kettle Corn Guy's hat? And he gives out the best samples! Someday we will have to buy some. It is so good.