We had a great Christmas this year. This was the second Christmas without my husband, but we feel he was here in spirit. The first Christmas was more grieving, this day was more about memories. It is always changing. Sometimes things happen, whether real or perceived, that are comforting. I was handing out the presents to my family. It was a job he always enjoyed doing. While passing out the gifts, Mike wore a Santa hat with the Green Bay Packers colors.
I had handed out the presents, and we were going to take turns opening them so everyone could see. My daughter asked who was going to wear the Santa hat that dad always wore. The words were no sooner out of her mouth when a beautiful Eagle flew right passed the patio door. I was facing the door and said "oh my gosh, an eagle just flew right in front of the door". My daughter said she didn't see it and it turned around so we could see it fly past again. The timing was perfect.
The grandkids are all grown. They range in age from 22 to 12 and they all showed up. They played games, ate all kinds of junk foods and just hung out at grandma's house.
The good part was not one gift had to be returned (that I know of). Even though being together should have been enough of a gift, we all got things we needed or wanted. I even got a gift I didn't even know I needed or wanted, but it was awesome. It will provide me with entertainment everyday for a long time to come.
It is a bird feeder with a camera. The camera is connected to wifi and through an app I can access activity from my phone in either real time or pictures. If you are watching live and see something fun, you can video it or snap a picture. The app saves the pictures until you delete them. If you aren't watching Live, it will record the activity to be watched later. There is a SD card and a solar panel for power. Initially I had to charge it up through a charging cord because our lack of sun this winter isn't going to be very helpful until we get more sunshine. Here are some examples of pictures that were saved. I posted a few of these on Facebook, but I also want to save them to this blog.
Most of my friends who read this blog know my youngest grandson Ewan. Ewan is an outdoors man for sure. If his parents would let him, he would sleep outside in the snow under a tarp. He likes making things and always makes me a gift or two at Christmas. This year he wanted to make something for the birds. He convinced his mother to help, and they made these suet and seed donuts. I guess it was a pretty messy job and I should enjoy these because I may never receive more.
However there is more to the story. Everyone knows how much I like seeing deer wander through the yard. I could never be a hunter, but that is my personal opinion. I can barely eat beef so venison is not an option. Shooting for sport is not something I was raised with. My grandson's other grandfather is a hunter. Ewan went to hunter safety class and went deer hunting this year. He shot his first deer. Part of being a hunter is dressing it in the field and then butchering it for the meat. Well, in the process of butchering the deer, he cut off all the excess fat and guess what he did with it. Yup, melted it down for Nana's bird donuts. They didn't just melt it down in a pan on the stove, they melted in a pan on an old wood burning cook stove. He is all about being authentic. I wouldn't have known any of this but after I opened the box and handled them, I was told to go wash my hands. I thought that was a strange request. Then I learned why. Fortunately the birds like them and they look cute hanging outside. I won't have to touch them again.
I also got some useful items including water softening salt. It will be so nice not to think about filling my water softener tank with salt for a while.
After presents Ewan and his parents went snowshoeing out on the marsh while the others watched football and played video games. We had just gotten a lot of snow so it was perfect for snowshoeing. They walked a long way and he was in his glory.
It is a good thing they did because a week before Christmas there were ducks swimming on this pond and four days after everything was melting.
This is my tenth year writing this blog, and I want to thank everyone who takes the time to read it. We are now on to 2023 and all the adventures waiting for us.
Happy New Year!
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