I can’t complain about this winter.  It had been a very nice for a change.  I don’t remember a winter this nice, and I like it.

We didn’t have much snow; even though all around us had gotten more snow than we did in Fargo, ND.  We had a few cold days; but that was expected.  February was the warmest I have ever seen.

Some say, we are having the East coast winter.  I don’t know how true it is.  So if anybody from the East coast have any feedbacks, I welcome it.

The nice the winter has been, I do know it’s not over until the fat lady sing.  We can still get some nasty weather in March.  March can either come in like a lion and go out like a lamb or vice a versa.

You can always expect some kinds of storm during the month of March, the time of March madness.  It seems every time in March when there is high school basketball tournament going on, we get some kind of storm or cold bad weather.

The weatherman may not agree with that theory.  It’s a coincident that happen and they can’t keep denying it.  It likes when it seems to rain on Memorial Day weekend, 4Th of July, Labor Day weekend, or when the fair or ribfest is town; it rains.  Is that coincident or what?

Some people like Al, I invented the internet, Gore would say, “the weather we’re having is because of global warming.”

It’s not because of man-made global warming.  It’s because of the weather cycle.  The weather does change every so often.  That is how we got Greenland and Antarctica.  So don’t ever let the Al Gore people tell you different.

Even the weatherman doesn’t agree with the theory of man-made global warming.  They understand the cycle of the weather.

I have been enjoying this nice winter we have been having.  I have no complaint here, for a change from my other blogs.  Let us be thankful for this beautiful weather and enjoy while we can.  Soon Mother Nature might change her mind.  We do not want to piss Mother Nature off.  There is nothing like a mother scorn.

I’m writing this blog in favor of our new Secretary of Education, Devos.

The Democrats doesn’t care for her.  Maybe they are afraid of what she would do to the public education system.  Either they are afraid that she would privatize all the school or something else.

I, myself believe that maybe she would do some good to our education system.  Believe me, the public education is a total disaster.  Maybe she would brings some of the ideas from Private schools into the public school system.

Those who goes to private school or are home schooled are more challenge.  They are more apt to do better in college.  Students in public school are not as challenge.  Private school system have better teachers.

Sure teachers don’t get paid very much; but that is not the issue here.  They don’t motivate and challenge the students like they do in Private school.

I’ve never went to private school but I’ve heard and read about it.  My experience is with the public school.

In public school, they only teach what they want to teach.  The teachers can be very liberal.  For example: I was never taught about the Vietnam War, when I was in high school.  I was only taught about what was going on in this country during that time.  It wasn’t until I got older that I learned the truth about the Vietnam War.

I remember studying the holocaust in the tenth grade and even seeing a movie on it.  Now days, from what I heard, kids today do not even know what the holocaust was about.

The reason Japan does better in technology is that our education system is a mess.  Even Germany has a better education system than we do.

I wasn’t really challenge when I went to school.  I could had went to private school, but my mother chose not to because of her experience she had; being separated from her parents and family.

When I first went to college right after high school, I went for the wrong reason, to get away from home.  I didn’t knew what I wanted.  I wasn’t really motivated by the teachers and even my folks.  Sure with these blogs, I’m finally doing what I went to school for.  The long way around.

I did ok in math until the 8th grade.  That was when I had this math teacher, Mr. Elton, who also taught band.  He wasn’t a very good math teacher. When I had study hall, I would take my math to my study hall teacher, Mr. Martin; who also taught Senior math, and I got it.  But then started working in the school cafeteria; so I gave up my study hall.  If my parents were the kind that would motivate us, maybe I could of had made arraignment to meet with Mr. Martin.

Don’t get me wrong, I had some good teachers in high school also.  My English teacher, Mr. Nelson, was a teacher who tried to challenge us.  Sure he had us read books we didn’t like.  At the same time he would encouraged and challenged us.  Since I graduated in 1984, he challenged anyone in class to read the book, “1984”, by George Orwell, and write a report on it.  I took the challenge.  I’ll talk more about the book in future blogs.  He also encourage me to look at an English major, to possibly becoming a writer.

Elementary school was more about the same.  I’ll never forget back in West Fargo, how they moved me from the first grade up.  At least they told me it was up.  The scary part was, I was young small kid in a class with bigger and older kids.  That’s scary and not very challenging to young child.

Kids are normally active and teachers don’t know how to deal with it.  So they choose to drugged them up and say that they are hyperactive and have ADD.  Some of them may not have ADD, because they are hyperactive; to calm them down for we can teach them, we’ll medicate them.  Instead of medicating them, they should try motivating and challenging them.  It might calm them down and they might learn better and more.

If the students do a report that the teacher don’t agree with, the teachers will have the students redo the report or get a failing grade.  If the students did a little extra research on a topic that differ from they’re taught or the teachers doesn’t want to see the possibility; the teachers will have them redo that report by leaving that important fact out.

I bet they wouldn’t do that in private school.  I know that it’s done in home school. So those who are against Devos, should reconsider that maybe she would work on improving the public school system.  Maybe we need some of the ideas from Private School and Home school into the Public school system.

Sen. Al Franklin has no business to complain about her.  He’s not the brightest person.  There is only one good thing about him, and that is he’s not a career politician.

So let give our new Secretary of Education the benefit of the doubt.  Who knows she might just improve the public education system.  Believe me, it’s needs a lot of work.  Maybe if I was challenge more in high school, I would had known what I wanted in college and done better.

I had a great English teacher at NDSU.  His name was Dr. Matchie.  I even switched to have him as my advisor.  I first did a report on “The Sun also Rises”  by Hemingway.  I couldn’t get into that book but with Dr. Matchie help, I changed my report to one on “The Pearl” by Steinbeck.  He may had been a Democrat and I was a College Republican; but that didn’t come between my education I had from him.

To those who say that the mother has rights, I say, “what about the unborn baby, she’s carrying?”

Some may say, “it’s only a fetus.”

I got news for you.  That’s a baby in the making!

When a person has an abortion, she is killing a precious little baby.  By doing that, she is committing murder.

A baby should have a chance to live like anyone else.  Where would we be if the Virgin Mary chose to abort baby, Jesus rather than gave birth to him?

I’m so glad that my mother chose to have me; even though she was a single mother.  I was a miracle.  The doctor told my mother that she couldn’t have kids; than I came along.  I may not had the best childhood growing up, but I’m glad to be alive.

I have a cousin with Cerebral Palsy.  The adoption agency didn’t want to give him my uncle and aunt because of that.  I’m glad they took him anyway.  He can do quite a bit and he is a big help in their old age now.

When George Sinner was governor of North Dakota, he had a chance to outlaw abortion in the state; but he didn’t do it.  Since that happened, his health and political career was ruined.  He was a Catholic.  His brother was a priest in the Catholic church.  He even thought about becoming a priest himself.  He should had known better.

Some may say, “what about having an abortion in the case of rape?”

The way the justice system is, “Hell No!”  If they allow abortion only for that, there would be women hollering rape just so they can get rid of the baby.  Then that guy life would be ruin.  The sex may have been consensual but since the woman holler rape, it wouldn’t matter.

They should stop abortion now.  The person who ran the only abortion clinic in Fargo was a preacher’s daughter.  She should know better herself.

Don’t get me wrong, there is woman out there that shouldn’t have kids.  Here is one example: Few years ago, there was a young child that was killed when she was hit by a car in the pouring rain.  I feel bad for the child. I feel bad for the driver of that car.  But I do not feel bad for the mother.  I’ve seen how that mother didn’t watch her child while the child was alive.  The child just ran freely, while she played on her phone not paying a bit of attention on the child.  It would had been better if the Social Worker and the police to take the child away from her.  That child could still be alive today.

If a person don’t want the baby, they should give it up for adoption.  There are parents who wants kids but can’t have any.

There are also women who goes out to get pregnant just to get help.  They take advantage of the Government.  They don’t watch their kids.  They are just ways to make money off the Government and us taxpayers.

If Hillary Clinton would had been elected, she would had put another pro-choice judge in the Supreme Court.  And Roe vs. Wade would continue.

When it comes to planned pregnancy, say no to abortion and yes to either keeping the baby or give it up for adoption.  Give that baby a chance to live!  I’m glad that my mother had me and I’m alive today.  I’m glad that the Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus.  Because of that I’m saved and forgiven.

I’m back after a week off.  I was watching the Super Bowl last Sunday and also was quite busy with other things; so I apologized to my loyal readers.

As the title suggests, when birds fly over North Dakota; they go cheap, cheap.  I’ll try to explain my reason to saying that in this latest  blog.

Our state government officials just doesn’t want to take care of their people.  North Dakota’s minimum wage is the lowest in the country.  It stands at $7.50/hour.  A person can’t live on that; anymore than raising a family on it.  Paul Harvey said before he died, “North Dakota is the only state where people have to work 2-3 jobs just to get ahead.”

I mean, Minnesota; who was in a poor economic state under Tim Pawlenty, raised their minimum wage under Mark Dayton.  Why can’t North Dakota do it when they had a surplus?

Speaking of surplus, what happened to it?  The people has the right to know.  I hope that Gov. Doug Burgum gets to the bottom of it and fixed the situation. He is not a career politician and he doesn’t owe anyone anything.  He done a lot for the city of Fargo.  His wife is trying to show the negative stigmatism of addict, so they can be help.

They need to take care of the people in this state.  They need to raise minimum wage.  If they don’t take care of the people now; by the time those 50 and over either retire, end up in nursing home, or even God forbid passed away, they won’t have very income coming into the state.  There will be more going out instead.

Look at what happened in Wisconsin under Governor Paul Ryan, whole bunch people retire at once and their economic state just collapsed.  Or how about when stores finally were allowed to be open in North Dakota, even if they started at noon.  Moorhead had the upper hand, business wise; but they soon lost a lot of businesses to Fargo.  The reason, Minnesota has this stupid sales tax that businesses have to pay.  So instead of paying it, they left Moorhead and opened their business in Fargo.

I’m not in favor of Sunday Opening but I do understand from a business sense.  I think it did hurt family.  It also allow more part time help.  That way employer can divide up the hours among the employees and avoid paying benefits.  By hiring part-time, they don’t have to pay benefits.

If you don’t have things set up for your retirement or God forbids, your untimely death, don’t expect much from the state or the county.  You won’t get it.

It seems to me that our Government officials, like Al Carlson care more in putting money in the hands than the people that matter the most.  They would rather build a pipeline; which we don’t need.

The way they treat the people in North Dakota, they don’t deserve a say in the Electoral College.

I always tell young people I work with.  “When you graduate from college, get the hell out of the state.  There is nothing for you in this state.”  You can make more money in your field in another state than you can in North Dakota.  I mean, for the same job at NDSU, you can get paid more at Moorhead State and Concordia.

I’m not saying we need to be a welfare state like Minnesota.  They just need to do a better job at taking care of the people.  I hope that Gov. Burgum will turn things around for the state and sees the flaws in the way the Established Government is running the state.

Ed Schaffer knew he had to bring business into the state to attract our young people.  I believe Burgum does too.  They just need to think about the money that will attract them also.

North Dakota is suppose to be a good state to raise a family, but how.  No one is raising our kids.  Both parents are working around the clock.  Sure the crime rate is low and the cost of living is low.

Actually the cost of living is a little higher in Willeston  and Minot, because of the oil industry.  People on fixed income can’t afford to live there.

Our North Dakota’s government was easily taken advantage of by the oil company.  They manipulated them because they were excited about making a profit and didn’t even had a plan of emergency.

How many of you had watched the inauguration of Pres. Trump?

I wasn’t able to watched it as it was going on; but I did streamline it on-line.  I like what I heard and saw.  To quote Pres. Trump, “We’re going to give this country back to the people.  The problems we have go back to the last 3 administration.”

After he said that we are going to give this country back to the people, the camera rolled over to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.  The look on their faces was to die for.  They gave the look as if to say, “Oh no you don’t.”

Those in Washington had too much power and they just abused it.  They are career politician who are only in it for themselves.  It’s so great to see them get what they deserve.

According to the Constitution, they are not to make a career out of being in Washington; and that is what they did.  I enjoy seeing President Trump shocking it to them all, the Established Republicans, the Democrats, and the press.

I have to admit, like anyone else, I was afraid of Donald Trump at first.  Now, I’m so glad that he got elected.  He’s already off to a great start.

He told these manufacturers either they build in  this country or faced a severe tax penalty.  By doing that it will bring jobs back in this country.  None of his cabinet members are career politicians.  They don’t owe anybody anything.  He is setting up to build that wall between Mexico and the United States.  He just signed a bill to prevent anyone after they leave office not to get involve in any foreign lobbyist.  In other words he is going after the Lobbyist.  He turned over the Asia trade act and looking at NAFTA.  Both were a big mistakes.  He will not fund these Sanctuary city anymore.  He is looking at taking away the funding for the abortion clinic.

I’m not too keen on his budding relationship with Russia though.  I’m not too happy with the go ahead with the Keystone Pipeline in the Dakota access.  It may create jobs in this country.

He is already doing more than Pres. Obama ever did; involving creating jobs in America.

They say that we are divided under Trump.  I’m here to tell you, we were more divided under Obama.  Pres. Obama had a perfect chance to make Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, “I had a dream speech”, a reality.  But he messed that up by promoting racism.  There were more racial attack under Pres. Obama than should had been.

If Hillary Clinton would had gotten in, it would be the same-old, same-old.  We the people are tired of that.

Even my sister, who voted for Hillary because she was scared of Trump, is seeing that he is off to a great start.  Just think, all those protesting against him now.  What would happen if his plans work out and he succeed.  How would they feel about him then?  Remember, people were scared of Pres. Reagan also.  Reagan faced opposition from his party, as well as the Democrats and the press.

Can we buy the public buy into the theory of Global Warning or is it something made up by Al Gore?  Remember, Al Gore, himself, said that he invented the internet; and we know that to be false.

If it’s so true, why is he flying around in his big fancy jet and living in big mansion?  He is the biggest waste of our environment.  He should walk the talk.  Instead he is saying, “Do as I say not as I do.”

I’m so glad that he wasn’t elected President in 2000.  He would had been even worst than George W. Bush.  If that is possible!

I’m not saying there is climate change.  It comes with the territory.  The weather does change.  We had the ice age; but I don’t think it has anything to do with what Mr. Al Gore says.

I’m not saying that we’re not polluting our planet.  There is proof of that.  Look at Flint, Michigan.  The water is still not safe to drink.  Or how about Three Mile Island or Cherbanol in the Soviet Union?

When God created this planet, He created man to be caretaker of it.  In other words we are to look after it.  I have to admit, we are not a very good job at it.  We’re poisoning our planet and the people on it.

As I said in the last blog, there is too much pesticide in our food that we eat.  Just to stay healthy, we have to add more preservative; which is actually worst for us.

The protest over the pipeline in North Dakota may had been a good idea at first.  When the nut jobs got involved, they turned it into a riot.  That’s where I draw the line.  The Native Americans had a good a point because it was poisoning the water supply and being built over their sacred burial ground.  These far-out Leftist took it too far and they should be a shame of themselves.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t do all we can to protect our planet.  I’m for saving our planets from pollution.  I’m tired of all the chemicals they put into our water and food supply.

I just can’t buy into the Global Warning hoax that Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio is trying to sell to the American people or the world.  Especially when they are wasting the most by flying around in their fancy jets and living in a big mansion.  They should walk the walk and talk the talk.  They should set an example for us to follow.

I like Leonardo DiCaprio’s movies.  I just don’t believe in his and Al Gore’s theory of Global Warming.

If you want to lose weight, fad diets doesn’t work.  Sure you will lose weight, but you will gain it all back.  Or you’ll start losing weight and then gain some of it back; and get bored with that diet plan within a month time.

I’ve tried my share of diets out there; so I know what I’m talking about.  Even Kirsty Alley who had lost weight through Jenny Craig.  Remember, she lost through the program and then when she was off the program, she gained it all back.  There was a big stink about it.

I’ve tried the grapefruit diet.  I would take a grapefruit pill, half an hour before each meal.  The pill was to curb my appetite; so I would eat less.  I even have tried Slim Fast, by eating their bars and drinking their shakes.

I found that the best diet out there is eating healthy. I started a year ago.  I have been losing weight.  Not as fast as I would like but I feel better.  If you lose the weight slowly, you are less likely to gain it all back.  If you eat good healthy food, you wouldn’t want to eat the stuff you normally had eaten before.

When I cook, I cook with Extra Virgin Olive Oil.  Even when the recipe calls for veg. oil or margarine; I would use olive oil instead.  When I do eat good healthy food, my stomach doesn’t feel blah and I would have to take Rolaids.  I would also try to eat more vegetables.  I would even steam my vegetables; rather than boil them.  I would even steam my potatoes.  Since I been on this healthy diet, my body had told me to cut back on coffee.  I don’t drink much coffee in first place, though.  I’m not talking about cappicino or flappe.  I find myself cutting back on fry food; which I love.  When I go to a buffet, I would eat less.  This past Christmas, I didn’t baked as much as I used to.  I even gave away more cookies.  Last week, I ate Spam and eggs for supper, and I couldn’t eat the Spam because it was too salty for me.  Now that’s something for me to cut back on.  Instead of drinking coffee, I would either drink green tea or juice.  The green tea is unsweeten too.  My next thing to cut back is the seasoning I use; and use more herbal seasoning.

I don’t drink diet pop, because the artificial sweetener in diet pop is worst for you.  The saccrarine can cause stroke/heart attack.  The doctor won’t tell you that though.  There are things that the doctors won’t tell you; because they want to keep you unhealthy.  That way you are spending money seeing them or on the medications they offered.  They want to pump you full for medicine that you may not even need.

For examples:  my mother was on a blood thinner that a doctor from Sanford prescribed her.  If she wasn’t on that medicine, she wouldn’t had the stroke she had because her blood became too thin.  Another example:  doctors would recommend a person to have chemotherapy when they have cancer.  That is the worse thing you can do to your body.

Kids are normally active and may get rambunctious.  Well teachers and school counselors wants to prescribe them with drugs thinking they have Attention deficit Disorder.  Really not all kids have that.  Kids will be kids.  They need to burn off some of their energy.

They wonder why kids and even us adults are overweight.  No one exercise.  They eat and sit in front of the computer or video games or tv and eat.

When I was a kid, living in West Fargo, we would ride our bikes around the neighborhood.  We would pretend we were motorcycle gang.

When the Michelle Obama talked about eating healthy.  We must exercise also.  Instead of going after these fast food restaurant, let get our kids away from the computers, video games and tv, and get them outside.

By the way, I even cut back on bread.  Oprah Winfrey said, “I love bread.”  Bread is the worst thing to eat to lose weight.  I’m learning I can’t eat too much at Subway now.

There is cure out there for diseases like cancer and diabetes but the government and Pharmecutical company doesn’t wants you to know about it.

Until then change your eating habits.  Start eating healthier.  Start slow like I’m doing and eventually you will cut out things that you normally love to eat.  I’m not saying I don’t cheat.  I’m just saying I’m slowly cutting out the junk and eating healthier.  I feel better.  I wish I was losing the weight faster, but that will come in time.

If Eddie Lambert was smart he would cut his losses with Sears.  Sears is bringing Kmart down with them.  It was a big mistake for Kmart to bail out Sears in the first place.  I wouldn’t done it.

Sears is a dinosaur.  Sears and JC Penny are the 2 oldest retail stores.  They both started around the early 1900, along with Montgomery Wards and Woolsworth.  Sears and JC Penny are still around.  The only reason Sears is still around is because of Kmart.

Don’t get me wrong, at one time Sears had good stuff.  My folks bought appliances from them and even Craftsman tools.  They just have been going downhill for awhile now.

The original owner of Kmart is rolling over in his grave at how Kmart is being run into the ground.  He took care of his employees.  Kmart was store where the common working man would shop.

Then again Sam Walton, the owner of Walmart took better care of his employees than his kids does.

It’s almost like greed sets in running a business.

Eddie Lambert is so rich that he doesn’t care Kmart close or not.  He just going to run the company until he can’t get anymore out of it and then shut down.  He don’t care about the employees.

If I owned Kmart, I would drop Sears like a “hot potato”.  I would look for ways save Kmart.  Kmart may not be able to compete against Walmart; but they can still survived without Sears bringing them down.  I would start selling American made stuff at Kmart.  I wouldn’t sell the same things as Walmart.

I will not buy clothes at Walmart.  I will either buy clothes at Kmart or JC Penny.  I don’t buy shoes at Kmart or Walmart though.

I will somehow make a incentive for the employees to work at Kmart.  By giving incentives, the employees will make Kmart a better place to shop.  They will care about the employees because they will care about the store.  Kmart do not need to be open on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve.  The employees should be able to spend that time with their family.

As of last week, Sears closed their store at West Acre; and I say good riddance.  It doesn’t hurt my feelings any.

By closing Sears, Kmart can sell Craftsman tool themselves.

They say the reason why Sears closed at West Acre is because times are a changing.  These anchor stores are a thing of the past.  People don’t shop at the mall anymore.  They would rather shop on-line or at strip mall.  That is a crying shame!  Especially up in North Dakota where it can get very cold.

If you want to save Kmart, do us all a favor and drop Sears.  Don’t let Sears bring down Kmart.  Sears used to have the Sears tower in Chicago.  Not anymore!

The year 2016 was a very interesting one.  For once in a long time the political race was very interesting.  The people had spoken loud and clear to our Government officials.  They were and are very upset with the direction that the Government had taken us.  They weren’t just not upset with the Democrats.  They were also upset with the Established Republicans as well.

Donald Trump drew the biggest crowd of all the candidates. He spoke what the people were saying.

The Established Republicans fought hard to get Jeb Bush nominated but the people told them fat out, “No!”  They had enough of the Bushes; especially after Pres. George W. Bush.

I’m sure Hillary Clinton would had preferred Bush over Trump.  She would had won the election.

Throughout the election, the non-establishment candidate was fairing very well and wiping out the Established Republicans candidates.  I’m what you call a Reagan Republican, and I was so excited to see this happen.  It needed to be done.  Let us hope that they learned their lesson this time.

The top 4 Republicans candidate wasn’t part of the Establishment.  Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio were part of the tea party, and Trump and Ben Carson wasn’t a career politician.  This was what the people wanted.

The tea party was formed under Pres. George W. Bush and really took off under Pres. Obama.

Even the Democrats had their problems.  The race was between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.  Even though Sanders was a Socialist, he still drew more people that Hillary.  Since the Democrats have the Super Delegates, it made hard for Sanders to get the nomination over Hillary.  This is why Trump ran as Republican, rather than a Democrat.  He is not your tradition Republican.

The last time a non-establishment Republican was elected President was with Ronald Reagan in 1980.  Somehow they still had some power and was able to regain the White House.  Hopefully Trump will really clean house in Washington.  It will make the established Republicans stop and take a look at their mistakes.  I hope this will also bring about the idea of term limits for our Congress and Senate.  According to Ben Carson, who said, “According to the Constitution, they are not to make a career out of being in office.  They are to serve their terms and go back home.”

Enough politics for now!  We also lost a lot of celebrities in 2016.  There are too many to name; so I will just mention a few.

They lost rocker, David Bowie, and the Artist known as Prince.  They lost Country music legend, Merle Haggard.  In Hollywood, we lost, Patty Duke, The all-time TV mothers, Florence Henderson, ZaZa Gabor, Carrie Fisher and about 2 days later, her mother, Debbie Reynalds.  They lost the TV dad from Growing Pains, Alan Thicke.  They lost another rocker, George Michael from Wham.  Days of our Lives lost the star who played Stefano, Joseph Masconnel.  There are others but too many to named and remembered.

On a good note, Actor, Kirk Douglas made it to a 100 years old.  That’s pretty good for someone who had came back from a stroke years later.

What will 2017 brings us?  Will President Trump does what he says he will do?  Will he clean house in Washington DC?  Will both the Republicans and Democrats take a good hard look at their party platform?

President Trump is on the way already of doing some great things.  His choice for his cabinet is pretty much non career politician.

Christmas isn’t the same anymore.  I don’t just mean Christmas had loss it’s true meaning either.  That’s another blog for another time.  This one is more personal to me.

Growing up Christmas meant getting together with your family, stuffing yourself, and opening lots of presents.  My mother was big with the family getting together, no matter how mad we may get at each other.

We would celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve.  My mother would gets up early that day and worked preparing a feast for us all.  She would have 2 kinds meat.  Usually ham and turkey, but one time we even had either duck or goose.  She would have mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, a mock crab salad, baked beans and not the kind from a can either.  There was always so much food, that if you went hungry, it was your own fault.  The tables were so full with food that we had to eat it buffet style and take a seat wherever.  Since our family had 7 kids, mom and dad, and then in-laws, and even grandkids.

I remember one Christmas, our family got together with my Uncle John’s family and he had 6 kids.  That one time there were 2 families getting together in one house.  There was also a time in our house in North Fargo, my grandparents from my step-dad were there for Christmas as well.

The house would gets so hot because of the oven being on.  After we would eat, mom and sisters, and sometimes sister-in-law would help with dishes in our small kitchen.  Dad would gets the cards ready with money in it from him, since mom usually bought the gifts.

When we were little, my step-dad would hands out all the presents.  They were all under the tree that my step-dad got just a few days before Christmas.  When he got the tree, we would then decorate it from top to bottom.  I still got the Santa Claus that lights up in the corner of the house.  Matter of fact, I now got my mother’s decorations.

As Shirley and I got a little older, we got the job of handing out the gifts.  No one would open the gifts until everyone got theirs.  After we open the gifts, dad would get a big garbage bag for all the wrapping papers to be thrown away or burned once we moved down on the farm.  Afterwards, we would have pie for dessert.  The older kids would leave shortly after, to spend Christmas with their in-laws on Christmas Day.  Those who didn’t have any in-laws would spend Christmas Day at home.

I remember one time around Christmas, my mother would gets us dress up to go Christmas Eve mass at the St.Mary’s Catholic church.  That happen only one time though.  I think they felt it was too much of a chore to get all of us kids ready for church on Christmas Eve.

As we got older, there became more grandkids.  We had one sister who was always late for Christmas.  It was because of her husband.  We would have to wait until they got there to eat and opened gifts. The kids who smoke would go outside to smoke after we ate.  I hate to say but some of the older kids would come there drinking.  They were no fun to be around.  We tried and tried to have mom and dad put their foot down; but mom just loved her family around that she couldn’t put her foot down.

One year, I got the idea of getting my folks a microwave oven for Christmas from all of us kids.  I got that idea, when I heard that my Aunt Rosella’s kids got her a microwave for Christmas.  The microwaves still works but my folks are not around anymore.

As us kids got older, we even drew names just among us kids.  That became a chore and put upon one kid to organize it.  Your guess is as good as mine who organize it.

Christmas started going downhill after my older sister, Barb died of cancer in 2001.  Ronny started drinking heavily and started a fight with dad.  It gotten to the point we didn’t  want him or Bob home for Christmas because they couldn’t behave themselves.

When my nephew, Mickey brought his girlfriend, now wife home for Christmas, that both Bob and Ronny made an ass of themselves around her.

When my mother passed away almost 5 now, the family didn’t get together like we use when she was alive.  I did take on the responsibility of making mom’s baked beans for dad  and brought it down for him on Christmas.

Now that is done as well, since he had joined mom up in heaven, this pass year.  Only certain members of the family gets together and the rest is on their own.

When we were kids, I would say the family was like the Brady Bunch.  As we gotten older, we became like a redneck family.  As the song from Montgomery Gentry, “Merry Christmas from the Family”, if you listen to the words, that song became our song that would describe our family.

I hope that this wasn’t too disturbing for you.  This was what Christmas meant to me as a child and how it changed growing up.  Now you why I said earlier, Christmas isn’t the same anymore since the folks are gone.