CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS

There are traditions for Christmas and there are rules of marriage that make them work.

The house and tree must be decorated, both our jobs.
Gifts must be bought, my job.
Gifts must be wrapped, Marty's job.
Stocking stuffers must be bought and separated into bags for everyone in the house, my job.
The Christmas letter must be written, my job to write. Marty's job to tweak, format, and print.
Gifts must be mailed, both our jobs.
Meals must be cooked, both our jobs.
The ice maker must die. The gremlins' job.

I HATE wrapping presents. I am known for giving gifts in brown grocery bags. When gift bags were invented I was so happy. But everything will not fit in those bags. So I still must wrap some things. I don't do a very neat job wrapping, I can't judge how much paper is needed. I hate it, hate it, hate it. Marty wraps the gifts and they are beautiful. Usually he wraps, not this year.

The ice maker died. No ice, no attempt to make ice. It knew we have 5 house guests coming in a week, and 2 dinner guests tomorrow. It quit. We have had many brands of refrigerators over 41 years . They and or their ice makers all die before a party or overnight guests arrive. And always they die during the Christmas holidays, always. Today when he should have been wrapping presents while I cleaned house and did laundry, Marty worked on the ice maker. I wrapped presents all day long. Lots of them in gift bags which still takes time and effort. But many had to have paper and ribbon. And Marty was on the net trying to find out what was wrong with the ice maker. He would come back into the kitchen and punch and pull, and pry, and turn it off, then back on. Nothing. He got back on the net, ready to give up and call a $125 an hour repairman. When we heard it, that lovely sound of ice dropping into the bucket. It was working!!!!

Marty isn't real sure how he fixed it, but we don't care, it is fixed. He thinks a cube jammed and shut everything down. Doesn't matter, it works.

I wrapped everything except two gifts. I will let Marty do those tomorrow.