Hi, everyone!
We’re getting ready for winter and the holidays now! I let Kitty-san and EUS know about the things we do to remember Uncle Bill, like putting lights on the apple trees and decorating the Christmas tree at church. Grandma and Grandpa got new lights to put on the apple trees, and Kitty-san and EUS and I helped Grandma put them on. We were lucky to have a warm day to do it! After we got done with that, Grandma let us all pose for holiday portraits in the holly bushes. There are lots of red berries on them this year! Grandma says she’s going to cut some holly branches to decorate the church for Advent.
Grandma is doing a lot of things to get ready for all sorts of events. She bought a white silk poinsettia for church, like she does every year. Grandma’s friend Rita-san is in town, so I helped Grandma bake biscotti. Rita-san REALLY likes biscotti! We put them in the freezer, in case Rita-san doesn’t have time to come see us before she goes back to Florida. Grandma has been wrapping presents to go to Japan for Christmas and Karin’s birthday. Kitty-san was very curious about all the packages in the big box. He fell in, found a space just big enough for a Kitty-san and decided he wanted to go to Japan, too! Grandma said he could go, so I helped weigh Kitty-san so we could add him to the customs forms. Kitty-san is excited to meet Bill-kun and Karin-chan and Original Lion-san!
We had our first big winter storm right before Thanksgiving. The snow was really wet and heavy! It made the bushes bend over. Some of the branches on the pine trees broke right off! One branch fell on the power lines next door. It took the power company twelve hours to fix the damage! Grandma said it was a good thing she wasn’t trying to get ready to cook a big Thanksgiving dinner!
EUS and Kitty-san were included in our invitation to have Thanksgiving dinner at Joe-san and Nancy-san and Moose-san’s house. Joe-san made some fancy appetizers to eat while we waited for the turkey to cook. They were yummy! Then EUS and Kitty-san helped Moose-san and me check that the turkey was done. After dinner, I showed EUS and Kitty-san how I help serve the desserts. Grandma baked an apple pie and Nancy-san made a plum pudding. Everybody wanted to have a slice of each!
Today, we all went over to Grandma and Grandpa’s church to decorate for Advent. I explained to Kitty-san and EUS that Advent starts four Sundays before Christmas. We decorate the church to get everybody thinking about Christmas. First we found the big wreaths in the storage room and helped Papa Dick-san put those up. This year, Averil-chan came with her parents and grandparents to help put up the wreaths and garlands. We all got to meet her! EUS and Kitty-san and I mostly helped Grandma and Nancy-san and some of our other friends put the decorations on the Christmas tree in the sanctuary. Then we made sure the candles in the sanctuary windows were in exactly the right places. After that I showed EUS and Kitty-san the Advent wreath, with four candles to be lit on the four Sundays of Advent. We even helped decorate the garland on the stairs with Grandma Sue-san and helped Papa Dick-san hang the big garland in the sanctuary. Doesn’t the Christmas tree look pretty?
Love,
Lion-san
You all had a busy week, packing presents, baking biscotti, checking out turkeys, testing appetizers, plating deserts, decorating trees both at home and at church. It is no wonder that Kitty-san is ready for a trip to Japan! Grandma’s experiment worked! The cinnamon bread didn’t separate even after freezing!