Last year we did have a white Christmas. It snowed for several days before Christmas and it snowed on Christmas Day, too. Not this year! The temperatures have not been below 35 degrees this winter.

We started the day out slow and easy, then we had to go to my mom’s house for dinner. She is a great cook and takes this Christmas dinner thing very seriously. So we all have to get dressed up nice, can’t be late, and have to make an extra effort to not get into an argument with anyone in the family so we don’t upset my mom and ruin her Christmas.

Wow – it seems like every day this week I have had a package delivered to my doorstep by UPS. I bet the driver is about sick of driving down my street by now. I have seen the truck in my neighborhood as late as 8:30 pm, delivering the packages in the dark. I know this is their busiest time and after Christmas a lot of them will be out of work. But it is pretty cool to know that you can get a package from your house to mine in about 1 day, if you are willing to pay the price, no matter where in the U. S. that you live.

Holiday dinners always seem to be based on turkey or ham. What is up with that? Why don’t we celebrate Christmas dinner with some great T-bone steaks and lobsters? That’s what I’m talking about! Enough with the turkey, people! I want steaks – big, think grilled steaks are my idea of celebrating!

Here it is the first day of September. I don’t usually like the first day of the month. All my bills are due on the first of the month except for my car insurance, which Thank God!, is not due until the 20th each month. So the first two weeks of every month mean that I am broke and have to wait to get some fun money until i get the next paycheck.

This month, the Labor Day weekend actually means I get a day off – with pay. So I can relax next Monday and not worry about the paycheck being short on the 15th. That helps.

Always a sucker for free fireworks, I love the Fourth of July. There used to be other events that would have fireworks involved. But, sadly, most of those events have quit doing the fireworks because of the cost.

We used to see fireworks on the Lake a couple of times each year, but that was stopped when the park got sold. Now, about the only way to see fireworks other than downtown on the 4th is to go to a Friday night home game with our local baseball team. They put on a 15 minute show after the games – but only on Friday nights and on opening day.