Holiday Update

You would think that having all that time off for Christmas would give me plenty of opportunity to post and lots of material about which to post. True on the latter but not the former. Lots of people and lots of fun mean little time. I guess when I post often it's a direct reflection on how miserably boring my life is at that time.

I'm a person who loves tradition. I enjoy doing the same things every year. Maybe because my mom had no Christmas traditions on which to build ours or to share with us, I always wanted my kids to have Christmas memories to tie them to each other, our family, our beliefs and our culture. When the kids were little I really loved coming up with things that would stay with them for the rest of their lives. I can't tell you how eager I was to continue these with the next generation. This year, though, our traditions required major overhaul, but turned out better than I expected.
B came home a day early, having originally planned on driving home Christmas Eve night. A friend needed more hours at work and asked if B would give him his shift. Thank goodness he was able to come home a day early. His truck broke down an hour from home but at least the weather was nice. By the next evening, he wouldn't have been able to make it home at all because they had about 14 inches of snow, or worse, broken down with no way for us to get to him because the highways were closed. Christmas Eve we battled the ice and finally made it to church for the Christmas Eve Service. B mentioned that friends of his always went to Joe T's on Christmas Eve and since we were already out in the mess and were starving, we trekked over to to Northside. It will definitely be a must for future Christmas Eves.

Christmas Day was not normal or traditional, meaning it felt like any other day. Since Meg, Eddie and Reid weren't coming until later, we didn't celebrate. Instead, Kenny, B and I helped cook breakfast at the Night Shelter with our neighbors. They are very involved volunteering there so we offered to help cook that morning. It was a lot of fun, 'cause I love to cook, but also we enjoyed sharing the time with people that have NO ONE else. If you are in a homeless shelter on Christmas morning (and we were in the mentally ill wing of the shelter) then chances are you don't have a family to go to. There was a kid there, younger than B, and watching him broke my heart. Obviously his condition was not controlled by his meds (one thing they do there is to help stabilize those with mental illnesses with approriate medication) and I wondered about how he got to where he was in the same short time that it took my baby to grow up and graduate from college. Where was his mom? Was her heart broken, too? Was there a hollow place in her heart? WHY was she not with him?

For several hours we cooked, laughed, talked about their gifts and the guys discussed football. A tradition that I wouldn't mind starting for us for future Christmases. After that we came home and sat around. A very nice day.

The 27th is when the real fun began. The kids got there Sunday night. We had to take 2 cars because everyone wanted to go and there wasn't room for all the people and the luggage. We came home, opened Christmas jammies and then the marathon wrapping began for Santa and Mrs. Claus. We don't put anything under the tree until Christmas Eve after the kids to go sleep so it's never wrapped until then. We wrapped until 2 in the morning! The tradition in our family has always been to get up, open gifts, have a big breakfast on our Christmas dishes, and then go to the Grandparents' house for late lunch and more gifts. Because of the baby and my parents' age, we decided make it easier on both. Kenny picked up some sausage rolls from Busy B's the day before (Meg's favorites) and I made hot chocolate. It made life soooo much easier for me! Later, my parents and brother came over for lunch and gifts. It was a great start to a new tradition.

The rest of the week was just fun and games. We sat around and ate and ate and ate. Had to fit in lots of Mexican food for the kids. Our traditional New Year's Eve became the New Year's Day Party because Eddie's family had planned a birthday party for him on NYE and some of our party clan had some trouble with travel on their ski trip. Maybe that will be a new tradition, too. It was much more relaxing and there were no crazies on the roads that night. Lots of football to watch for the guys, too.

Last December was a hard time for our family. We found out that the kids were going to be even farther away than they were at that time and that Eddie's career plans were not going where he expected. We decided then that 2009 would be "The Year of the Clouds". Byron graduated from college and started grad school, Eddie graduated and was later given a spot in surgery that was not only unexpected, but was not even a possibility (he was told). Meg was accepted into a doctoral program. Best of all, Reid was added to our family. To add a cherry onto the cake, we found out that the kids would be moving to San Antonio. It was indeed "The Year of the Clouds". Lots of altars were built to remember God's faithfulness and love.