Sorry - turn that frown upside down

Sorry for all the depressing posts. What can I say, I'm an overly emotional person.

The Middleton kids are very excited for Christmas. We've got the tree up, the lights up, even bought the fake light deer. Jack is quite the decorator and has planned for weeks what the lights outside should look like this year. I even let him climb on the ladder and hang some from the eave hooks. Little things make him happy.

Even Katie is getting excited about what she sees. She wants to stand on the kitchen counter and look out the window to the front yard where the "deer" are - "Cows!" she hollers. "Lights!" she screams. She still doesn't quite get that ornaments are supposed to hang from the tree - she keeps bringing them to us to put away, like we accidentally dropped them on that tree that just appeared in the corner. I can't wait to see her Christmas morning.

Now I've just got to finish the Christmas letter!

Sometimes sadness just piles up

Only 18 days until Christmas, and it should be the happiest time of the year. But the past few days, many things have just caused me to sit and weep. I'm so sad about the Kim family (lost in S. Oregon). I wanted so much for the family to be brought back together. I have a husband and two kids. What would I do in such an awful situation? How can things just go so horribly wrong so quickly? The "armchair quarterbacks" just make me so furious. "He shouldn't have taken that road;" "They should have stayed in the car." Such superiority as we sit in front of our computers drinking our coffee and reading online news. They DID stay in the car. For SEVEN long days and nights. With NO FOOD. VERY LITTLE HEAT. HUNGRY babies. I would have been going crazy, thinking "I've got to DO something." How would you know what is the right or wrong thing to do? 2 weeks ago was Thanksgiving - this family was together, laughing, eating, drinking, probably thankful for what they had. Now they are devastated. And the worst part is that James Kim probably died thinking his family would never be rescued.

And sadness at home - R.I.P. Anita Floyd. She "lived" on a bench up the street from my office. I gave her whatever change I had, talked about the weather, where would she stay when it got cold, how she was having health problems. But I never knew her name until her obituary. I feel sad that I didn't take the time to know her better.