Keeping up traditions

Maybe I think of this more as "Muddling Through" (in the Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas sense) then "polishing a turd*") but I am trying in some way to keep up a few traditions, even in a changed form.

(*Yes, I know, when I was a kid that was a "bad word" but I hear it even in cartoons now so maybe it's not so bad? Anymore? I mean, i remember when you didn't say "damn" or "Hell" on network tv....) 

I made fruitcake last weekend:

Same old recipe as before, but this time the fruit for in them was ordered from nuts.com, which actually seems like a pretty good source for this kind of thing - they ship fast, and the quality was good (perhaps better than the Paradise brand that I'm used to), and the price wasn't exorbitant.

And of course I decorated the tree, though I do that even in years when I can go visit family. 

And I sent off one card, and I need to do the rest of them - maybe not tonight, it's Board Meeting, but maybe tomorrow and Friday evenings. I received a couple already (one from the across the street neighbors; the woman retrieved a package delivered for me while I was over at school - there was an incident of attempted porch-pirating a couple weeks ago and if she hadn't yelled at the people and scared them off, another neighbor would have lost a $300 pair of shoes)

And then this afternoon, after picking up the package from Karen - I knew it was a gift my mom had sent to me, because it was from one of the places I had listed as wanting stuff from - I decided to maybe just put my gifts and "gifts"** under the tree

I stuck bows on them even though they are not wrapped

**I say "gifts" in quotation marks because the puffy white bag is something I ordered for myself - a silly thing, a stuffed toy, but the company is also donating one to a child in need for every one of these purchased, and it was one I wanted ANYWAY. And the two blue boxes are my Gachapon crates from the past two months that I saved back so as to have something slightly reminiscent of "stocking presents" to open. And then the big box from my mom (off to the far right, only partly in the photo) and also a small box from Book Depository came in the mail today, and I don't remember having any books I ordered still on the way (that's not impossible, though, I ordered some back in September that were out of stock and I can't remember if they all came) but I am assuming it is a present and will open it Christmas morning anyway. And even if it's one I bought for myself, I don't remember it, and so it will be a surprise anyway. My December Doki Doki crate is still on the way (should be here Saturday, if the USPS website is correct) and I will stick a bow on that and put it under the tree. 

When I was a kid, that was a favorite thing - the non-Santa presents (from parents or other family) were wrapped and put under the tree after we put it up, and I always liked to look at them there, the idea of potential and also of abundance.

And then finally? Someone I follow on twitter posted that toysfortots.com allows donations on their website - and it turns out you can virtually donate toys (I am not sure if they actually buy the very toy you picked, or if it's a "monetary donation of that amount" but I don't care). It's kind of nice - when you put a toy in the box, a little animated Marine walks out and salutes. I had had a tradition every year of buying at least one toy that either my brother or I would have wanted for Christmas and donating it, and was a little sad this year that I couldn't do that, so this makes up. (I had also given through an Amazon wishlist for a foster-care program that has a list of toys they wanted to be able to give to kids in care, and there I picked a soft doll. For this one, I chose a football and a set of princess dolls. The football on the grounds that slightly older boys are often overlooked in this.)

So I guess I'm making Christmas, in a way, on my own. I wish it were different but it can't be. The last two days of this week will be devoted to grading, next week I plan on working on the research I never got to, and then I am taking all of Christmas week off, to clean house a little and also to sit and knit.