Merry Christmas!

It's hard to believe that the much anticipated day is over. On Christmas Eve my 7 year old niece was on pins and needles for presents. She was even willing to skip dinner for them. And I realized the major difference between kids and adults at Christmas time is the "now" versus the "anticipation." Personally I love the whole Christmas build-up: Shopping, baking, spending time with friends and family. For the kids, it's all about the presents.

Our celebration this year included some old and (hopefully) new traditions. We changed our Christmas Eve this year, returning to a similar multi generational arrangement we used to have when my grandparents were still with us. In those days we spent Christmas Eve at their house, and had Christmas Day at home with family dinner. When Grams passed in 2001, our Christmas Eve changed. This year we reinstated some of those traditions. We had a snack buffet at my sister's home and spent some time together as a family. We played games and told stories before opening gifts to each other. It was a very nice evening.

Christmas Day dawned early, mostly for Mom. On the 24th she and I made three pies for dinner. On the 25th she made two more. The prime rib went into the oven at 8:30. Then we had breakfast and then my parents and I opened the remainder of our presents. Dinner was scheduled for 2:00ish. (It's always an "ish" at our house.) My sister and her family arrived at 1:00. My aunt, uncle and cousins by 2:00. We spent most of the afternoon just hanging out together, eating, playing games.