Here Come The Holidays!

We went to our first Christmas get-together yesterday evening. Sister Rose had everyone over to her house - nieces, nephews, in-laws, sisters, mothers, sons, daughters, grandchild and a few friends - the whole crew was there. Fortunately she has lots of space for us all to spread out so we had a noisy good time. Food covered the countertops and stove and table - we did a potluck meal as usual being the sensible people that we are, but Rose still did a lot of work to pull the dinner together. I tried to get a picture of each person, so let's see how I did as I lay this out. Here's Rose, Erika (with a bag of ice for her allergy eyes), and Chris with girlfriend:



The newest family unit: Jason, Mackenzie and baby Nolan, visiting from Cleveland:


Margy, Abby and Laura: (Phill has already gone to Hilton Head and they'll meet up with him next week):

Mom, Kelly and other family and friends:

And so begins the holiday season! This coming week brings the annual Christmas play at church, my company dinner with co-workers and spouses at The Precinct, and a gathering of our friends from church for a fun games night. And then Christmas Eve! This week's going to fly by and suddenly it'll be ... Christmas Day! Remember my motto for the season: Keep it sane, keep it simple. It's really all about a Very Important Birthday, not the "stuff" we get so caught up in.