The Ghost of Christmas past!

As I sit here in Florida on December 24, I am reflecting on past Christmases and the people I have spent them with.
Today Leigh and I are sitting here alone and remembering when the kids were young and ourselves when we
were young.

We had some special Christmas then with our family together. I always loved baking the cookies with the kids and grand kids. The decorating of the tree and outside. The wrapping of the presents. The excited look on the kids faces on Christmas morning. Going to Church Christmas Eve to celebrate Jesus birthday. The true meaning of Christmas in the first place.  The whole family sitting down to a feast we shared together Christmas day. 

In my past when I was young. My uncle Joe would gather us in the car and we would drive all over checking out the Christmas lights. And later in life my cousin and i doing the same, and my children and I riding around and seeing the lights. You see it became a Christmas tradition in our family.

Another Christmas tradition was getting an ornament every year and when I moved away that was the start on my Christmas tree decorations. I did the same with my kids and grand kids.

Another tradition I learned as a wife in the Watkins family was the baking of Christmas cookies. I learned to do that with my mother-in-law.  And I did that with my kids and grand kids, and my children do that with theirs, and the traditions go on.

One of my favorite times at Christmas was visiting my cousin Johnny's house because he had trains we played with as a child in his dad garage. He managed every year to put up a train display under the tree and in the end around the whole living room no one could match.

Other Christmases was spent at the Watkins house of June and Al my in-laws. Then when I married Leigh the big family Christmases at our house and going to his sister's house. Then later as things changed in our family going to each of my daughter's houses for Christmases. And the one special Christmas spent with my son Sterling.  All of these things above are my memories of Christmas past and they keep Christmas alive in my heart that and celebrating the birth of Jesus and attending Christmas eve services every year.

St Marteen

St Marteen was an island ruled by the French and the Dutch.  St Marteen is recovering from a hurricane and I saw lots of places never rebuilt, but I I was impressed with housing the Dutch built for the Low income. It made me think of Haiti. And how the government collect all those billions of dollars and did nothing to help the people rebuild.

Anyhow our tour was to the butterfly farm So we toured the French and dutch sides and went to the butterfly farm and them some shopping in Marigot.  The butterfly farm was small but I did she some interesting butterflies. Getting pictures of them was hard because they only landed quickly and if you got near the flew away.

St Thomas Virgin Islands

St Thomas the US Virgin Islands is a beautiful pearl. We took the Blackbeard castle tour and we went to a garden at the top of the island where we has my first banana daiquiris and a rum punch while we toured the garden, We went to a look out over Megan's Bay. Then onto to Blackbeard Castle and the Rum factory and a tour of 4 houses on the premises. They told us how Blackbeard and his pirates protected St Thomas. The grounds were beautiful. The bronze statues of the pirates. The rum factory and the rum tastings was Leigh's favorite part. The whole tour and the island was just great and I saw my first Guiana.  St Thomas was the very best part of our cruise.