Last Sunday was the 46th anniversary of our move to Tivoli.  My grandfather Poppy gave me a shoot from their Christmas cactus for our new home, and it is covered with buds for the season. Grandma and Poppy had the two windows in their dining room filled with these cacti .  I think my brother might still have the originals in the cellar.  Very easy plant, hardly needs water, doesn't mind sitting on the north side with no direct sunlight.  I used to put it out in the summer, in the shade, near the house, but it is too big to carry now.   Always is a little amazing to me that the plant knows when to put out blooms, and at its old age.  I hope plants don't go senile.  One year it did put out a few blooms at Easter, but I just figured that was Maria at work.

Anyway, it is now the official countdown to Christmas.  The family was here for a Saturday Thanksgiving and we selected catalog items that we liked, put our name on the picture and added it to a bowl from which we drew names.  It's a fun thing to do, and even Kevin got into the mood and put in his name.  I was just glad to get rid of all the catalogs, probably over fifty of them, in the recyclables today.  I tried a little cybershopping yesterday, but it got complicated, and some of the sites must have been too busy to handle the shoppers, a la Obamacare.  So today I put in a few phone orders and one the old way, filling out a form, and enclosing a check.

When the kids were little, we would get a Montgomery Wards catalog and a Sears catalog that they poured over for hours.  They were instructed to put their initials on items they wanted, and to keep the cost under $50.  Try doing that today.  After a few days the catalogs would be in poor shape, and someone in a snit had put Paul initials on girly toys.  But it gave me a place to start from, and I don't remember shopping like you have to do today.  Probably because we just didn't have all the stores to chose from, and there were no malls.  In Beacon we had Grants and Schoonmakers, Nicki's luggage and Fishman's as a last choice.  All within two blocks of each other.  Now it's a car trip, find a parking spot, buy a few things, go to another store, find a parking spot, etc., etc.  Well tis the season, and a short 22 days to go.