When I was a kid, Christmas was consistently a big deal in our family. Even though our father passed away while the people I was with and I ladies were still quite young, our mother still made every effort to provide us all sorts of presents and just be able to celebrate at Christmas. She would even take minute jobs so he could make ends meet and still buy gifts. All of us would often scrimp and save on other things, such as the undefined or the heating. In summer, our mom would set the temperature control quite high so the undefined would not run all day long. It was never super comfortable, however it was consistently bearable. The same thing was true in the winter. All of us did not easily need the oil furnace all that often, however when the people I was with and I did, mom set the temperature control quite low, again in an effort to save on heating and cooling costs. When I look back on it now, it does not bother me that the people I was with and I were conservative with our undefined and heater. In fact, I am still that way as an adult. I do not know in spending too much money, and utilities are honestly a huge cost each month. I do remember one year when I was still pretty young – perhaps I was around fifteen years old – and our oldest sibling and his spouse were being legitimately sneaky around Christmas time. I knew they were up to something, but I did not believe what it was. It turned out that they decided to spend money the heating and cooling costs for more than one months for our mom as his Christmas present. They came and got the bill, which was a month behind, and paid it all the way up. My mom cried, and that was easily the first time I realized how tough our mom’s life was.