Christmas decorations

Thursday
I’m falling so behind with my blips at present - as usual I’m so behind with Christmas preparations, Blip is taking a back seat - but I shall try and do a bit of catch up, for those days I actually took something!

Today, we enjoyed lunch out at Olive Garden with our friends John and Ellen. We hadn’t been to Olive Garden for quite a while, but I always enjoy it, and even better with friends! Afterwards, we went in search of a new artificial Christmas tree. We are going to be away for Christmas and New Year, renting a cottage on Anna Maria Island near Bradenton Florida, where our son is currently living. So we want to have a small tree we can take with us, to make things look a bit Christmassy. We tried Lowe’s hardware store first, which is where I took my Blip, but didn’t find what we wanted there, so tried Menards, where we had better luck. Laura will be flying home from Kuwait to join us for the holidays, it having been six years since she saw her brother, due to varying circumstances! Jen and Jason will join us after Christmas, as Jen unfortunately has to work Christmas Day. The location works reasonably well for them too, in the sense that Jason’s parents have recently retired down to Pensacola Florida, so they will go there first for a few days, joining us in the evening of the 28th until late afternoon on the 1st. Unfortunately, although in the same state, the two cities are quite a distance apart. So hopefully, we should have at least one day when we can be all together as a family, which will certainly bring me great joy!