Home for the Holidays

Some readers may not realize that Christmas is not yet over. No, I'm not talking about the Christian calendar and the twelve days of Christmas, though my mother never takes down any of her decorations until Epiphany on January 6th, but about my family's ongoing celebrations. As I've posted before, we have Christmas Eve at home with just our immediate family then go to my in laws' for Christmas Day. On the 26th, we make the pilgrimage to my hometown. That night, my brother and his wife arrived from California, and my sister, her husband, and their three kids trekked over from across town, while my grandmother made the journey from her house across the street. The kids all opened their presents, wildness ensued, in a word--Christmas.

Yesterday my mother's only sister and all of her children and grandchildren came to my grandmother's house for our extended family Christmas. In all, my grandmother has six grandchildren, three boys and three girls. We have managed to produce ten great-grandchildren for her so far. We visited, ate the famous holly clusters, laughed, opened presents, and then, best of all, went out for dinner. No mess, no dishes, and lots of good food and conversation. I am fortunate to truly enjoy spending time with all of my siblings and cousins as well as all of their spouses. I know this is not always the case, but we have very little family drama. In fact, Adventure Guy was once bemoaning his somewhat crazy family life and made the comment, "Well, no one really has a normal family....except for you."

Our normal family will be continuing our gift opening today. Now that Adventure Guy has made it in to town after having to work the last couple of days, the grownups will open their presents tonight. We'll then go out to get some good Mexican food and then hopefully cheer on our college football team to victory in our bowl game.