As a followup to the prior entry, I thought that I might make a plea to some of my readers, or perhaps a suggestion. We found over the years that it seemed that we had more and more difficulty in finding things to give to eachother which would be wanted and appreciated, if not actually needed. Living in an RV we soon had all of our extra space filled with more that really fit into it. In time we discovered that it can be really fun to give to someone who is really in need, even when we do not know them!

Kids have always been our soft spot and so we discovered a program from the Salfation Army called Angel Tree. Poor families sign up and each child's name is put on a red angel, attached to the tree with a few things which the child needs or has wished for. Most of these kids can be given a really merry Christmas for far less money that most of us spend on plain old "stuff." Have you ever considered some program of this kind?

Am I the only one here who does not really like the Santa Claus tradition?....

What I remember from the days that I believed in this was that we were poor so I really depended upon Santa to bring me some nice thing like all of my friends got. Since my friends were all from families with reasonably good incomes, they got some wonderful things each year which I could only dream of.

The year that I remember best, I started very early to work hard at being one of the nicest, best behaved, of all the children on his list! I think that I must have been about 6 years old at the time and while not perfect, I came pretty close for a small boy. Imagine my disappointment on Christmas morning, when I received my usual one small toy, new socks and a shirt. It was then that I concluded that for some reason Santa did not like me as well as he did all of my friends. That was the last year that I ever considered Christmas a good time of year.  Fortunately it was not much later that I discovered the truth about Santa Claus and where presents actually came from, to my great relief. It was much easier to deal with being poor, than to think that Santa doesn't like me!

As far as I am concerned, Santa Claus as it is practiced in our country is a nasty tradition that by design makes the poor children feel even worse. Imagine how they must feel having to return to school and compare what gifts they got from Santa to those of their classmates! I could tell Santa what he should do with his list!

Christmas was, and should be a religious holiday which was given as much to the poor as to the wealthy. At my house, Santa Claus is tolerated, but only because I must. Christmas is about the Christ Child!

Would you believe that it is now December? What a beaurtiful day it was here in Bass Lake too! It was sunny all day, almost no wind at all and a high of 68 degrees. We did a few chores today, Pam spent a couple hours at the ladies craft & coffee session and I joined a neighbor to pitch a few horseshoes.

We have had a strange fall here with early days much warmer that normal, then some days that were significantly below normal and now we are back a little above. We have had a few light freezes and frost on several occasions, but most plants are still green and my roses are blooming! I wonder if Santa Clause likes flowers? I sure do and he didn't bring me much last year anyway!

One of the great things about life in our community is the many skills of our neighbors and the way that everyone is so quick to help others, loan tools, or even to do things for the residents here with skills that they have which others may not have. In our case we seem to be able to do most with manual labor, computer skills and Pam has taught hand crafts. Today we realized a benefit of one of our neighbors which we might not otherwise yet have.

Next door is a retired school teacher whose hobby is cabinet making and who has a workshop with all of the specialized tools that this work requires and the skill to use them very well. He has built cabinets for at least six kitchens here, including ours before we owned the home. In our bedroom there is (or was) a space between two closets that just needed a set of built-in drawers. It was one thing that Pam expressed last year when we were looking at the house before we bought it. For just the cost of the materials, Tom my neighbor built us an oak cabinet, eight drawers and did all of the major work. I supplied the finish work as it is a skill that I do have and own most of the tools needed, but borrowed the others from neighbors.

The result is something that makes Pam happy and leaves me just a little bit proud of my part in it! The only negative is that now Pam has eight more drawers in our bedroom and not nearly enough clothing to fill them! I do hope that she doesn't deside to buy enough more clotning to fill all of them!