December, 2020 | Rosa M Luna

It might feel like you are stuck at home with your lonely self.

Have you sent Christmas cards off to your loved ones and Friends yet? Write something beautiful on their cards, by finding something especial on google that is especial for that person you are sending a Christmas card too.

Christmas cards; That will make them feel especial. Someone Birthday is during this month? Send them a beautiful card with a nice poem in it as a birthday present.

Christmas tree: Have you decorated the Christmas Tree yet? My Christmas Tree is 7 feet high and pretty wide and takes me 4 hours to decorate. Try decorating the house. Dollar store is around the corner, it really has lots of pretty things to decorate your home with.

Bake some cookies; I really enjoy my next activity, it’s my favorite part of the holidays, I make cookies, and color them with my Grandkids. Not this year. Due to the Covid19? Make them yourself! Pack them up and send them to your loved ones. It also places you in a happy cheer. (unless you eat them yourself) that’s fun too.

Go ice Skating; If there is an indoor “Ice-skating Ring” or an outside one around your area. Find one outdoors, just wear a mask.

How about making home made ornaments for your tree? Try using shining wrapping paper, draw gingerbread men of many colors.

Drive around looking a decorated home and their Christmas lights design. My Fiancé took me to this house who was so loaded with lights and they blinked to the Christmas radio station Christmas music. That was so Amazing to me. We could have sat there in our car for hours, But cars were starting to park all around us. That was so enjoyable.

Bake some banana Bread and after they are cooled down, eat them with butter on them. Delicious. Get recipes from google- Yummy!

Volunteer to visit a nursery home, the hospital, a Veteran and offer them your baked cookies and a sugar cane. It will make them very happy and you will lighten up your heart when you see their faces smile back at you. It’s a great experience. Afterwards. Wear your Mask!

Make yourself a Abuelita hot Mexican chocolate…Stir it with a Sugar cane to cool it down. The peppermint flavor of the candy cane will melt inside and OMG! Humm… good!

Decorate a gingerbread house while you’re enjoying a hot cup of chocolate. Those are so fun to build. Especially if you have an extra-large bag of all colored skittles. Those are for the line of the roof. Just fill it with all the possible colors. Fun!

Watch Christmas movies on T.V. or Netflix, there’s always tons of Christmas movies to watch, some are so “feeling good” type of movies. Makes you “want to fall in love”.

Make homemade gifts for your loved ones. One Christmas, I got some calendars from the Dollar Store and filled the days with birthday dates and a paper picture of the person who was having the birthday. Plus, at that time my daughter was pregnant with my grandchild and shared his ultrasound picture on the delivering date. It was a keeper Calendar! I still have one that I used as a copy. That was 14 years ago.

Well, my dear ones, I hope I have brightened your Christmas a little with some of my ideas. MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR! Manny blessings.

Connecting with Family over the Holidays

During this time of year, there’s shopping to do, for “decking the halls”, that’s something for us who are stuck at home, that we can do together. Go to our storage area and dig out the artificial Christmas tree, or go and make a day of it to look for a real Christmas tree. Sometimes, they are in your front yard.

Put on some music, get out the decorations, bake some goodies, and together decorate the Christmas tree. That is so much fun even decorating the tree by yourself. It takes me two to four hours decorating my tree. I light it up and its beautiful.

They say that the holidays are the “busiest time of the year.” Christmas cheer, pour yourself a glass of hot apple cider with a slice of orange or whatever your kind of Christmas cheer you may want to add to it and “be merry.”

Is there going to be a Santa around this year? Look it up. I just read somewhere that a store was going to place Santa in a glass box and have kids talk to him through that. That’s weird, but hey, you get to see and talk to Santa.

But what’s the best thing about Christmas this year? It is spending quality time with each other and making different and better memories with people we love.

There’s another way we could see our other loved ones, by using videoconferencing, like Zoom, Duo, Skype, and other means that could make you feel connected.

Using these video technologies that science has brought us, we can watch a video together. My daughter and I have done this. My daughter moved to Utah and we have connected in this way before.

Plus, you can talk to each other during the movie.

Here are other ways to connect with our loved ones this holiday season, even if we are miles apart.

You can send out some cookies by mail. You will just have to wrap them well so they will not be broken to pieces when your loved one gets them. Contact your local post office for some really good tips. They might just have the right package to send.

Here is a wonderful thing to do: Getting the family together to watch a holiday-themed movie such as “Home Alone,” “A Christmas Carol” with Scrooge, (I love this one.) “Christmas Vacation,” “A Christmas Story,” or other Christmas movies that could be your favorite movie for the holidays.

Today, through “Netflix Party”, you can watch a movie with them in real-time. “Netflix Party” is a Chrome extension that syncs up the film so you can watch it all at once and it has a live chat feature so you can comment on your favorite parts together. I just discovered this; it is so awesome. Netflix Party is available in the Chrome web store.

You could also donate a “Toy for Tots” at Les Schwab which is a tire repair shop. Les Schwab takes toys every year to donate to the children in the community.

You or your family can work on a gingerbread house and decorate it together. Or mail it out to those who you would love have them to build it for you.

This is what I am planning for the beautiful people I live with. I got some hot tamales and cinnamon candy canes from the local store, and I am going to make some Mexican very rich hot chocolate and place the candy canes inside, using the cane to stir the chocolate… MMM.

MERRY CHRITMAS EVEYONE AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!