Well we did it! This will be my 300th blog post on Stylish and Trendy. I’m so happy to have achieved this goal. Even as November came up short I told myself that I would get here and I did.
I just finished week four at Giant Eagle and it was a crazy one. Busy nights every day of the week with Christmas coming up. Last night was the busiest of them all. But so far I feel I’m in a good place. It’s a lot different than WIS was on many levels. I think I’m happy to continue on with this adventure for now.
I look back on past Christmas Eves and remember as a kid visiting Aunt Lotte’s house in North Versailles. Those was fun times. Especially the last Christmas Eve there. But I won’t get into detail on that one.
Aunt Lotte always bought us the nicest gifts every Christmas. One year it was Spirograph, another year it was a light up frisbee. It was Aunt Lotte who started the Turkey ball tradition in the mid 1980s. She also made that alcoholic punch with the strawberries in it. I wish we would have had more Christmases there that I could remember. Sadly, Aunt Lotte passed away just a few weeks after Christmas 1996. We’ve held down the tradition since 1998.
Mom makes a lot of food for Christmas and we’ve honored Grandma by having roast beef and sausage. She used to make her broccoli crab bisque every holiday but not this year. My aunt from Centre County started that tradition. We still have lebkuchen at Christmas, a favorite of my Gram’s over the years. Gramma Gaffron also had the Endless Gaffron Christmas tradition when everyone came to visit and celebrate the holidays. That usually ran until just before the New Year.
Mom also makes a ton of Christmas cookies. I was enjoying waking up every day to the smells coming from the oven. She’s made devil’s food, peanut butter cup, chocolate chip, and thumbprint cookies. She also makes her brickle which is amazing every year.
I tend to feed on the most annoying Christmas songs and that includes “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” I’ve long been a fan of 98 Degrees’ This Christmas and NSync’s “Merry Christmas Happy Holiday”. It was that generation I grew up with. I think Wham’s “Last Christmas” is the most annoying Christmas song of all time. Sorry Mariah haters.
“The Christmas Waltz” by Frank Sinatra was always one of Gram’s favorites and she played it every Christmas Eve when they would decorate the tree. We just got the Frank Sinatra Christmas album on vinyl and it plays well. My mom fell in love with the artwork on the back and it reminded her of those Christmases past.
Time to close off the blog and close off 2021 with my stats over the last two years. These are my blog posts over that period. It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.
Merry Christmas. ❤️ you.
Stylish 🍒 