Week 20

23 December

Elizabeth generously gave me her cyclamen plant to nourish before she leaves for London. This is a gift with no strings attached—she doesn’t expect it back.

24 December

What promised to be a big Christmas Eve dinner turned out to have only two guests—Ashton and Cole. We were glad that they, at least, joined us.

25 December

Ditto masters, I must admit are an odd thing to show for Christmas Day. With no family coming in, I actually worked on cleaning out some kitchen cupboards. Look at this prize I found---ditto masters dating to our time in Fremont (mid-1970s) when I gave a lesson to the Relief Society sisters (and later to the priesthood brethren) on journal writing. For those who have never seen a ditto master, it consists of two sheets. One wrote or typed on the first sheet, and wax (usually aniline purple) from the second sheet was transferred to the back of the first sheet. If errors were made, one scraped off the wax with a razor blade and tried again. The first page was attached to the drum of a ditto machine with the wax side out; by turning a handle to rotate the drum, copies were made. Subsequent copies became lighter.

26 December

Woops—I thought I had completed this embroidered Santa except for the outline stitching, but I see I missed a couple of stripes on the girl’s outfit.

27 December

Bruce and Susan with Susan’s children: Bernie and Toreva, Bryn, Wesley and Ilse—the day before the children were sealed to Bruce and Susan in the San Diego Temple.

28 December

Today qualifies as a two-picture day: at the San Diego Temple in the morning for the glorious sealings by the power of the priesthood . . .

. . . and back in Provo for the evening celebration of my father’s 90th birthday and my parents’ 65th wedding anniversary. Six of their eight children were in attendance.

29 December

Oh, yes, I got in the cleaning mode at my office as well—the blue bin and the two stacks of paper are all ready for recycling.