Christmas musings

Too great....my nephew obviously does NOT like sitting on Santa's lap!lol.

Well, it's definitely beginning to look a lot like Christmas now. Tony put the tree up yesterday. Since his mobile home he rents is so small, he offered me his tree to use this year...it is a huge, gorgeous, ROTATING tree:) This is the first year in a long time that we have been able to put ALL our decorations up!

Speaking of decorations...I somehow have 'Kirby 72' painted wooden decoration, and also a 'Susie 72' decoration. Have to ask my siblings if they want these back,lol. When we were growing up, Mom every year used to get kits to make decorations for us to make them...then when we moved out, she gave us 'ours' to have. I realized this was a good idea (belatedly) last night when Ben came by & I handed him FOUR measley decorations and said 'here's yours for your tree."

Decorating the tree last night led to a whole philosophical discussion about decorations....I suppose it's all what you grew up with. Tony is from the 'theme' school apparently, where you don't use handmade or homemade decorations, you use Christmas balls & like decorate all in white & gold, or red & green or you get the picture.

Ours is always a chaotic(I like to think 'joyous') mixture of ones the kids made, ones I made when I was young, gifts ones we've gotten, or ones we've purchased over the years.Let's hear it out there...which type do you use?

Remember the Christmas balls that Granddad McNulty used to make...where you take 12(or more?will remember when I try it myself) cut out circles of pictures from Christmas cards andfold over the edges on the sides & bottom of 6 of the circles & the side & top of 6 of the circles & glue the sides ,etc. together with a ribbon for hanging in the middle & then sprinkle glitter onto glue on all of the edges(does anyone have amental picture yet?lol. I don't think I'm good at descriptive writing)ANYWAY, I used to make them....so have been saving my Christmas cards for the past several years in order to make them again,& I beleive this year I have enough.

I am undecided as to whether there were 12 circles or more in the middle...will have to figure it out when I start on some more! I will take a pic & post it when I'm done, as I have the feeling my description is leaving a lot of people saying 'What? is she talking about?'

Thursday & Friday at work were both overwhelmingdays. I don't beleive it is just me, a nurse from downstairs got pulled up & agreed that this is the most overwhelming job she has ever worked...you never feel like you are accomplishing anything & she said she felt 'chained' to the med cart cause of the heavy med pass loads. I didn't get out either night until 8:30 pm...there is just no time during the day to do your paperwork, so I always end up finishing up at the end of the day. I could write more in depth, but I have decided to try & start thinking of at least ONE positive thing each day if I can or else this job is going to kill me!

I AM upset about what is potentially going to happen Christmas weekend...that is my regularly scheduled weekend to work. Originally they told us that we could sign up for 4 hour shifts on ONE of the holidays, like they did at Thanksgiving. Now that my boss has resigned, they issued a memo late last week that said they have decided the 'holiday' is from 10:45 pm Christmas Eve to 10:45 pm Christmas Day night. So that you are supposed to work your regularly scheduled hours before their arbitrary 'holiday' hours begin.

What this means, if I'm understanding it correctly, is that they want me to work my regular 12 hour shift on Christmas Eve day...and then they are potentially still going to run me in there for four hours on Christmas day, which with me leaving at 1:30 pm to get there and returning by 8 or 8:30 pm means I can just kiss the whole holdiay weekend goodbye,except for a little 'window' on Christmas morning to open gifts & celebrate.

I know, I have the wrong attitude...I think of all 'my' soldiers and those serving who are far from home & should be ashamed of myself for griping.

I was offended by the memo for two reasons...A. they said in it"our residents need care over the holidays,too" which hacked me off...I am not stupid, of course I realized that!But they first said they were going to do Thanksgiving,Christmas, & New Years one way, & then changed their minds. and B. when you send me a memo reminding me that our residents need care over the holidays, I am reminded that I have never seen any member of upper management in on a major holiday in all my 12 years of nursing,so it's basically saying that our residents need care and we are going to make YOU do it, while we enjoy sitting home & celebrating the holidays with our families.

Well, I think I have whined enough...thanks for letting me rant!