Hey, Jane......

[Tracey]

I wanted to thank you for something. You made a comment a while
back about how I was punishing my mother for last Thanksgiving.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately and I've talked to my mother
a couple of times since then (not about last T-Day, but about the
holidays in general) and I've been missing a very important fact here:
Between November 16th, 1994, and early February 1995, my
mother lost her oldest daughter, her mother and her father, plus
had to go through some pretty tough times with my nephews (who
moved in with her and my father right before Christmas of 1994).
I *knew* in my brain that my parents have hated this time of the
year since then (I'm not too fond of it either), but I don't think that
I considered that as a reason for what happened last year. Now,
I do. I'm *still* not going to make superhuman efforts to make it
to their house for the holidays, but not as punishment. I will let it
be up to *them* whether they want to start celebrating the holi-
days again. We talked about this Christmas already and, with
the way DH has to work this year and our being down to one
car (hopefully back up to two this week), it would have been
a 'hit and run' Christmas for us, with us driving in on Christmas
Eve and having to leave the day after Christmas. We'll talk
about next year.

So, thanks for getting me thinking about it. I owe you one (or
two, or twenty!)

--
Tracey

--

Message from 2999:

Save the rainforests! The ape overlords tell
us the best bananas come from there.

--SciFi Channel--

[jane lawrence]

I did not say you were punishing your mother! I just mentioned
that as one of the things.... oh, never mind.

My SD asked me today what I thought the worst thing about xmas
was. I told her that it's the people you can't be with even
though you want to. Both she and BD agreed.

Anyway, my mother was a pain in the ass around the holidays. I
knew that in one year she had lost her mother, her sister, and
her favorite cousin in that month, because I remember all the
wakes and funerals. That whole holiday season was nothing but
snow and death and snow and death. After that, the holidays
were challenging for her. I never put it together until your
post. So we're even.

jane

[Tracey]

>I did not say you were punishing your mother! I just mentioned
>that as one of the things.... oh, never mind.

Okay, Jane, I gotcha. You might not have meant me specifically,
but I applied it to myself on my own. Thanks anyway for getting
me to think in that direction.