Angels Watching Over Christmas Traveling

On December 23rd, Mom came over for dinner and opening gifts. We gave her a subscription to the Shawnee Newstar because she enjoys the crossword puzzles and the obituaries. Bill gave me a gold necklace, a gift certificate for BonWorths and the book, "A Simple Christmas". It was autographed by Mike Huckabee and has a certificate of authenticity. He also gave me the one thing I asked for ----mascara by Lancome. It's my favorite and it's too expensive for me to buy for myself without feeling guilty. I gave Bill some Polo, a gift certificate for Borders and a black onyx tie tack.

On Christmas Eve, Bill woke me up at 5:30 AM and told me that we should leave soon if we were going to make it to Springfield. We picked Mom up an hour later in the pouring rain and drove ahead of the storm. We stopped once in Tulsa at the QT on I-44 for breakfast and made it to Springfield by noon. Steve's family joined us at Noel's for more gifts in the afternoon. Later, Bill and I went in search of the Taco Bell on Republic Rd. and brought food back to the house. It was still raining.

It was snowing on Christmas morning and everything was white. Mark had gotten a new waffle maker for Christmas. It flips over like the ones at the hotels. So...I made Mark some waffles for breakfast. We learned how to use it together!! Steve and Hunter came back over at noon for Christmas dinner. Forest was sick, so Regina stayed home with him. Janice had a wonderful ham dinner. I was asked to make my Key Lime pie, so I did. Of course, there was pumpkin as well. After dinner, Bill and I left for Branson. Bill wasn't feeling well, so I drove. The roads were quite good in spite of the snow. We stayed at the Radisson, but the rooms were so so. That night nothing was open, so we ate at the hotel's Noble's Pizza. Then, it was off to find the Patsy Cline and Hank Williams Show. It was in old downtown Branson. It was the funniest experience. There were only 8 of us who came to the show! The singers were great and we got to know the other people quite well during the intermission. One couple was from Pennslyvania, another from Mississippi and another from Ohio. The theater looked like a small gaudy wedding chapel in Las Vegas! It was surreal.

On Saturday, December 26th, we went to Shoney's for the breakfast buffet. It reminded me of Japan. They had salad and chicken as well as eggs and ham etc. It was freezing cold, but we decided to go to Silver Dollar City in the afternoon to use our season's pass. Again, we saw "Dickens Christmas Carol". It is so good every time!!! I love the music! We saw a show at the Silver Dollar Saloon, bought some gifts and then left. I learned that I don't take cold weather very well. From there, we went to Bandana's Bar-B-Que to warm up, but it wasn't very warm either. After we ate, we went to Denny's for hot chocolate. The waitress was so friendly and refilled our cups.

On Sunday morning, we went to First Baptist Church, Branson. It's a modern building with about 400 in attendance. There was lots of music, and the message was very technical about the star that the magi followed. I learned lots of about the star of Bethlehem and Jupitor. After church we drove to the MacDonald's on Kansas Expressway and met Noel's family and Mom. We ate quickly so that we could get on the road and back to Tecumseh before too late. The worst part of the journey was through Tulsa. We saw 7 accidents, and most of the highway was not clear until we reached junction 97. At Mom's, the snow was deep in spite of some attempt to clear her parking lot. We got stuck and Bill had to push our car out while I drove. Fortunately, our street was passable, we had power and half of our driveway was clear. I said a prayer of thanks and am glad to be home! I taught my classes this morning, and am now multi-tasking to get caught up. I'm glad my family and friends had a wonderful Christmas and all are well.