Sunday, Dec. 12

Up at 6 a.m. on this windy/frigid morning to wake Daughter, so she could be ready to leave for the hour and a half trip home. She needed to be back in her hometown early enough to drop the kids off and then go to a job at 10 a.m. But she slept another 45 minutes before rolling out of bed.

She and the kids had a cold cereal/toast and jelly/orange juice breakfast, and then gathered their belongings and hit the road by around 8 a.m. It was spitting snow when they left, but the sun came out later.

After they left, I did a treadmill session and weights exercises, and then uploaded photos from yesterday to a social network. Hubbie helped Mother come over in the meantime. We didn't accomplish much before lunch.

Today is the first day of the Twelve Days of Christmas for Mother. This morning, I gave her a musical Christmas card, with Andy Williams singing "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas." She was both delighted and fascinated with it and played it several times.

We didn't plan a meal for today when we made out our menu earlier in the week, because we thought we'd be going to a town about 45 minutes away to have supper at our favorite restaurant, and then tour the Christmas lights and drive-through nativity. But it is so bitterly cold that we abandoned that idea.

So I decided we would just have baked sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese (Mother's favorite dish), and corn-on-the-cob, with slices of yeast bread...a dreadfully carbo-loaded meal. But it tasted good and was filling.

After lunch, we spent the afternoon watching Christmas shows...both of the "Frosty the Snowman" features, and the animated feature "The Flight Before Christmas." Then we watched "A Christmas Story," on DVD, followed by "Holiday on Ice," recorded on DVR. Mid-afternoon, we enjoyed cups of chai tea with cinnamon rolls.

Hubbie accompanied Mother home after our movie fest. Spent the evening playing on my laptop, reviewing lesson plans for meeting with my student tomorrow night, and watching more TV.