Merry Christmas! This morning went by fairly smoothly. How was Christmas morning? What did you get, was it what you wanted? I got lots of things, among which are a nice black overcoat, a book of poetry from the 1930s, and our grandma’s grandma’s (Mary Westerfield, née. Wearsch) sister Ruth’s sewing machine, made 1916 at the latest. She died at age eight in 1916 and Great Grandma framed it. I’ve wore my garnet locket with your face in it all day. It felt a right, and a little less lonely.
The snow is all gone, and it rained all day. That’s alright, we’ve had a lot of it anyway, earlier and more so than any previous year on Vashon. Did it snow? Grandma told me about yesterday that it was in the 60s there, so I would suppose not. At least it’s warm. Has the day been nice? I dearly hope so. I’ve enjoyed it well enough. I made Grandma a watercolor of cats and she liked it, which was quite nice. But it is always sad, so I must try to ignore and ‘make merry’ as they say. I’ve been reading A Christmas Carol (excellent, if you’ve not, and we also watched A Muppet Christmas Carol last night, equally excellent), and think it better to look at Tim’s lonely cane and celebrate that he was here at all when you can do nothing to return him. But my heart’s not practical like that.
Enjoy Christmas dinner, and whenever it is, know that I’m there in spirit, if not having dinner at the same time, eating fruit-flavored tootsie rolls (Great Grandma kept those in a little bowl at her old folks’ home, addictive). I miss you every night and especially this one. I hope some fun and cheer came to you today. It’s been 2,190 days since Mom said, “John, get Soren upstairs,” and only six Christmases between them.
With love,
Alice