Haddock and Dill: December 25, 1971 The Beautiful Christmas, The Children's Calls, The Delicious Dinner, The Plum Pudding and The Little Vacation

Dear Mother,

"We are having a beautiful Christmas and hope you are, too. Ann called last night and Bob called this morning so we have talked with everyone and that always does me a world of good. The calls were strung out too, and that made it better. B's mom called Tuesday or Wednesday, I talked with you Thursday & then the children's calls. It has all been nice.

Ann talked a long, long time and sounded so happy. She was anxious to know how we liked our gifts but we had just finished supper & hadn't opened them yet. She sent me a beautiful necklace--a little gold heart on a fine chain and her Dad a nice leather wallet.

She sounded bouncy as usual. They had opened their packages and were enjoying everything. Bob's mother had sent them some silver and $ and then she had sent some stock from the Grandmother's estate. That still isn't all settled. The kids are going to N.Y. on Monday to see a broker about the stocks. They didn't know what to do and Bob's lawyer gave them the name of a man.

I didn't get this finished before we went to Larsen's. It is almost suppertime and we just got home. We had a delicious turkey dinner and really enjoyed the day. Their son, Dick, & family were there. They have an adorable little boy 11 months old.

During most of December our paper ran Christmas recipes from different women. The woman who did the feature is one of my friends and I tried to find something different for her to use and remembered the plum pudding I used to make. I don't know when she got the picture--out of the newspaper's files, I guess.

Bob sounded happy when he called this morning. They had all had their tree and were having a good time.

He and Pat gave us books this year. Mine was on gems and written by a man from the Smithsonian. B's was called Civilization. It is a history of civilization and was on T.V. some months ago but we didn't get to see it all. It ran several weeks. Now we have a lot of reading to do. You might like to read it too.

It has been dark and misty all day long. There was supposed to be a chance for snow but it seems too warm for that.

It certainly doesn't seem like Saturday. We want to go to church tomorrow. There won't be a handful there and our old minister is going to preach. Our minister has even gone on a little vacation. Many people in this town do go on vacation during Christmas but of course, so many are school people.

I may do a little extra cleaning and painting next week before the kids come back. The hall needs painting so badly and I use water paint on the walls so I may do that this week.

I've got to do some entertaining too as soon as I can. My list of obligations is so long I'll never catch up.

I'd better stop. We want to mail this tonight and we'll have to drive to the Bloomington P.O. if we want it to go out.

Hope you are fine and have had a happy day."

Much love,

Bonnie

NOTE: Wishing everyone the best of the season and offering up thanks to all of you for reading the letters! Hope you'll return for 1972!