Grandma's Tree

Here is a letter from a dear friend. She sent in the letter last year and for some unknown reason it didn't post when scheduled. My sincerest apologies, Kim. Kim shares lovely, heartfelt memories that are begging to be shared. 

I think this is wonderful how you are using your blog for Christmas. Thanksgiving to me just sets our hearts up for Christmas. I am almost all decorated, waiting on the tree(that is the guys family fun to go cut it down), then I will be complete.
I lost my Grandma on Monday, it has been harder than I thought to deal with this. I was not ready for her leaving us. Christmas was such a special time with her. She is the one we grew up next to and hung out with all the time. Grandma was our "fun mom". At Christmas she would get out her big JC Penneys catalog, a big tablet and say write down your list, starting with 1 as your most wanted. So off we went, spending the next 2-3 days getting our lists finalized. This went on till we graduated high school. As a young kid that is all I thought Christmas was, I really didn't understand it was about Jesus. So you can imagine how much we looked forward to Christmas every year. Grandma spoiled us and got us at least our top 4-5 things on that list, which really was everything we wanted. Little did I know that mom and grandma had an agreement. Mom/dad always got us clothes or things that was needed, but Grandma was the one that got us the toys. My other grandparents (that lived in Gering, but now NP) used to just get us a little trinket. Christmas was a huge deal to Grandma. It we her time of the year to really spoil us. Growing up in a big family she had very little, so she wanted to spoil us because she could:) There are tons things to say about Grandma, but Christmas was the best. She would laugh at us changing our lists around, pouring over the book, fighting over whos turn it was to look. she even got 2 so we wouldn't fight. We would try to wrangle out of our chores cause we just wanted to stay in the house, eat cookies and make our list. She would have to come back in and say put the catalog away and get out here. Sometimes even threaten to not get the toys. She would store all the stuff in her back bedroom after she bought things. She instilled in us at a very early age that if we went back into the bed room to peek, the toys would go back. The look in her eye told us that she meant business, so we never ever peeked! To this day I am very good at not peeking because of her. Christmas was the one holiday that Grandma decorated for. She would put up this awful, nasty, old (at least 30yrs) plastic tree on her buffet in the corner. It was an ugly tree, but by the time she got done with it, it was cute. There were some very weird lights that came on it. So with your reminder of Christmas trees, I will have to go look for it when I get down there tomarrow. Maybe I will even set it up as a reminder of her. She will be so missed this year.
I hope I might have access to a computer to still look at your blog, but I have not/will not be participating due to this family thing. love your blog don't get frustrated if us silly people don't participate, keep blogging we are doing it in our mind if not on paper to you. love ya! kim