well, now I know why I’d been putting the wrapping off…

I gathered all the packages from the couple of locations where I had been storing/hiding them, and brought everything to the dining room table… had some great paper from Costco this year, a lovely snowflake theme in whites, blues and silvers… this will go beautifully with Crystal’s tree…

had to search for quite a while before I found the gift tags… took some time to decide on which paper would work for whom, and then began the actual wrapping…

the wrapping went well… I even got fancy with ribbon… then I had to write the first tag…

“love Mom”…

hadn’t anticipated the shock… my eyes welled up and I thought about all the parcels that I had made tags for over the last 40 years…

oh my, I miss my beloved…

so, after a little pity party, I moved on and finished wrapping and tagging the gifts…

collection of gifts for Christmas…

I also realize that I have focused on my immediately family with a very few exceptions… again, this is not my norm, but apparently there will be a number of differences this year… maybe tomorrow I will make some more sugar cookies for those who I have let drop off the list…

the kids came over, and we went Christmas pajama shopping for everyone… we returned home, had dinner and looked at things we might do while in Mexico…

then they were gone, and the house returned to a quiet peace-filled space… tonight it does feel peaceful, not empty like yesterday…

interesting…