An Invitation to a Xmas dinner

Dear Family,
I'm not dead yet. Christmas is still important to me. If being in my Last Will and Testament is important to you, then you might consider being with me for my favourite holiday.
  
Dinner is at 2:00 p.m. Not 2:15. Not 2:05.
Two. 2:00
Arrive late and you get what's left over. Last year, that moron Marshall fried a turkey in one of those contraptions and practically burned the deck off the house. This year, the only peanut oil used to make the meal will be from the secret scoop of peanut butter I add to the carrot soup.
  
Jonathan, your last new wife was an idiot. You don't arrive at someone's house on Christmas needing to use the oven and the stove to prepare your contribution to the meal.

Honest to God, I thought you might have learned after two wives - date them longer and save us all the agony of another divorce.
  
Now, the house rules are now slightly different this year.

New House Rules:

1.  I have decided that 47% of you don't know how to take care of nice things. Therefore Paper plates and red Solo cups might be bad for the environment, but I'll be gone soon and that will be your problem to deal with. Besides, I don’t have to worry that you might break my good china when you offer to ‘do dishes’ and don’t understand that means ‘wash them in the sink, dry them and put them away, ’not‘ stick them in the dishwasher and leave them for a week.

 2. I don’t care if your favourite team is playing a critical game. The television stays off during the meal. 

3.  The "no cans for kids" rule still exists. We are using 2-litre bottles because your children still like to open a third can before finishing the first two.  Parents can fill a child's cup when it is empty. There is one cup per kid and all of the cups have names on them and I'll be paying close attention to refills.
  
4. Chloe, last year we were at Trudy's house and I looked the other way when your Jell-O salad showed up. This year, if Jell-O salad comes in my front door it will go right back out the back door with the garbage. Save yourself some time, honey. You've never been a good cook. You shouldn't bring something that wiggles more than you. Buy something from the bakery.
  
5. Grandmothers give grandchildren cookies and candy. That is a fact of life. Your children can eat healthy at your home. At my home, they can eat whatever they like as long as they finish it.
  
6. I cook with bacon and bacon grease. That's nothing new. 
Your being a vegetarian doesn't change the fact that stuffing without bacon is like egg salad without eggs. Even the green bean casserole has a little bacon grease in it. That's why it tastes so good. Not eating bacon is just not natural. And as far as being healthy... look at me. I've outlived almost everyone I know.
  
7. Salad at Christmas is a waste of space.
  
8. I do not like cell phones. Leave them in the car. If I find one in my house I have a hammer to deal with it.
  
9. I do not like video cameras. There will be 32 people here. 
I am sure you can capture lots of memories without the camera pointed at me.
  
10. Being a mother means you have to actually pay attention to the kids. I have nice things and I don't put them away just because I have company coming over. Mary, watch your kids and I'll watch my things. If you don’t watch your kids, remember that I have a hammer.
  
11. Rhonda, a cat that requires a shot twice a day is a cat that has lived too many lives. I think staying home to care for the cat instead of coming to dinner is your way of letting me know that I have lived too many lives too. I can live with that. Can you?
  
12. Words mean things. I say what I mean. Let me repeat: You don't need to bring anything means you don't need to bring anything. And if I did tell you to bring something, bring it in the quantity I said. Really, this doesn't have to be difficult.
  
13. Dominos and cards are better than anything that requires a battery or an on/off switch. That was true when you were kids and it's true now that you have kids.
  
14. Showing up for Christmas guarantees presents at Christmas. Not showing up may or may not guarantee a card that may or may not be signed.
  
In memory of your Grandfather, the back fridge will be filled with beer. Drink until it is gone. I prefer wine anyway. But one from each family needs to be the designated driver. (I realize that might be a difficult choice, so think about a cab because I don’t want any arguments on my front doorstep.  Remember, I have a hammer.)
  
I really mean all of the above.
  
Love You, Grandma.

Support your local Food Bank

December 1, and only 24 days until Xmas. Your Food Bank needs your help now. Many Food Bank's are struggling with the increased load they have been asked to take up. The economy may be doing well, but that does not mean workers are doing well. Many people are struggling with low-paying jobs or illness that makes work difficult. The choice that many of our neigbours have to make, do I pay my rent, get my medication or put food on the table for myself and my children. The Food Bank fills a need, not just for the unemployed, but for seniors, single mothers, and working-class families. Many Food Banks not only provide food but they also provide, toys, gifts and Xmas meals.

In the United Kingdom, the Trussell Trust, which operates most of the UK’sfood banks, estimated that last year provided over 130,000 parcels of emergency food to people over the festive period. For those who used a food bank last year, they received a three-day parcel that included these festive extras: 

• Box of mince pies 
• Dried fruit and nuts 
• Christmas crackers (the kind with toys/jokes) Christmas pudding 
• Chocolate treats for children, e.g. a selection box Tinned ham or salmon

The above was in addition to the standard parcel for three to four which is: 

1 large box of cereal/porridge 

4 tins of vegetables 

3 tins of meat (e.g. ham) or vegetarian alternatives (e.g. kidney beans, lentils and pulses) 

if vegetarian 4 tins of fish (tuna, salmon, sardines etc) 

4 tins of chopped tomatoes 

2 tins of fruit 

4 tins of soup 

4 tins of baked beans 

2 litres of UHT milk 1 litre of long life juice 

2 tins of rice pudding or custard 

1 packet of biscuits Tea or coffee 

1.5kg of pasta/noodles/rice
In my community SHARE Family Services runs the Food Bank and they tell us that Christmas time is a busy one for and a time when they work extra hard to support those in need in our community. They also provide Christmas Hampers and Toys for Children while running various fundraising initiatives such as food drives and their annual Christmas Wrap at Coquitlam Centre.

They remind us that it is also a great time for you to give back and get involved. You can volunteer at our Gift Wrap, host your own food drive or toy drive, raise money, donate food and or come out and volunteer at a Food Drive.

Last year SHARE Family Services provided Christmas Hampers to 1,800 Tri-Cities families. There were also 2,215 children and youth who received their Christmas toys through our Christmas program. The need has not gone down, it has gone up. 

All Food Banks need help at this time of year, so if you can find the time, give of yourself, in addition to giving some money. You will feel good and that is what this time of year is all about, giving not receiving.

Did you do it your way?

As you wandered through life, you may have met the disciplinarian who micromanages every step in their very careful dance with life. You may have also met the young or old person who pictures themselves as "troublemaker who only shows up and when they do they appear to be daydreaming. 

Now, whom do you think is most likely to be heard shouting from the top of their lungs as they cruise along a winding mountain road, top-down, shades up, singing "I Did It My Way?

My bet is on the "troublemaker" which were you in your youth, and which are you now?

The Fountain of Youth

If there ever was a generation who would put every resource known to man against the challenge of defeating ageing, it would be my generation.  Of course, the deeply rooted desire in humans to stop or turn back the ageing process is as old as time itself.  We have ample evidence of that in literature.  From The Fountain to Youth to Peter Pan, there have been many efforts to just stubbornly say “I won't grow up” as though stamping one's foot and refusing to participate can actually keep us from growing older.

We have always had a love affair with youth.  It is no doubt deeply rooted in our explosive teen and twenties years in which we became virtually the center of the universe as youth culture dominated the country if not the world in the sixties and seventies.  That kind of thing can convince us that as a generation we would never grow old.

But, of course, we have grown old.  But the interest in staying vibrant and active has resulted in the explosive growth of the exercise and diet industries.  Because if we can’t stop ageing from happening, we can at least not LOOK old or act like it either.

From a medical standpoint, of course, there has never been an anti-ageing medicine or pill.  Medical science has seen phenomenal changes and had breakthroughs in many areas of research and study.  We are fully prepared to fund any medical work being done that might result in the elimination of ageing or at least in slowing its relentless onset.  But medical science has not found any magic potion that could cause ageing to stop or to reverse its effects.

Even if ageing could be stopped at some level on the physical level, you have to wonder if that would be practical in light of ageing that affects the whole of what a person is.  We know that we don’t just age in body, we age in attitudes, in maturity and in our ambition and how we view our goals in life.  This has as much to do with the cycles of life from youth to parenthood to middle age and then to retirement as it does with physical changes in our bodies.

For many, the question might be, “If science could make it possible for you to never age or die, would you even want that?”   There is an intuitive knowledge in our hearts that we have a season to live on this earth and then its time to pass the torch to the next generation.  Everything works on that cycle.  You are defined by your place in life.  So, if you are in your forties, being a parent or a spouse is considered the appropriate place to be.  So too, at 70 or 80, we are expected to be wise grandma and/or granddad.  Our behaviour in society, what we value and what we look for from others is expected to be driven by our age in life which is a subset of the ageing process.

If ageing was somehow defeated entirely, that entire cycle of life would have to be completely re-evaluated.  If you knew you would live 200 years rather than 80 or 90 years, how would you plan your family, your career and your finances? 

Thankfully, perhaps, ageing remains a constant.  The good news is while we fight age with a passion, we are also capable of growing into our senior years with a lot to give back to society.  So just as we have been had a huge impact on society through every other decade, when we accept that we are going to be part of that ageing process, we will be a great generation of grandmas and grandpas as well.