Christmas pictures this year were great and plentiful, which is extra good because I think my camera is on its very last leg after being dropped down the mountain at the hot springs..might as well go out with a bang though right? Here are a few:
Decorating the tree is one of my favorite favorites about Christmas. I LOVE it, and I love listening to Mannheim Steamroller while I do it and making my siblings put at least one ornament on the tree with me. It's just so nice to unpack them every year and see all the homemade crafts from first grade that are barely still together, the yearly Aunt Kathleen ornaments with each of our names written on them, and the Micah tin-hole punched ones. My favorite two are a Care Bear from the hospital after I was born and a man made out of beans from my godmother. Em and I used to scour the tree for a prime spot and set up a little town on the branches with all of the house and train and people ornaments we could find. See why I love it so much?!
This was the first Christmas without my Grandma, which was hard in a lot of ways. We lit this candle inside of a wreath and a barrier of ice for her and it sat on our front stoop all night on the windy Christmas Eve without blowing out. It felt like just the right way to honor her. Even though we didn't make it to Iowa for the first time in all my 25 years, I can see how our traditions will change and grow to be centered around our family and the families we will soon create, which is a nice thing to see.
Even though our kitchen is tiny, the six of us make it work more smoothly than would be thought possible. We made Arepas for dinner on Christmas Eve and Em took a break from avocado slicing to grab this shot.
As you can see, Dad is still quite the goof ball and is rubbing off on Mom! And yes, he is in fact on his knees, winter wasn't quite that crazy while we were in town!
Another odd thing about this year was that Lake Superior wasn't frozen! I few years ago mom skated on the lake if you can believe it, and usually there are great sheets of ice that form amazing sculptures on the sand!
One thing that hasn't changed since losing Grandma is our food intake. Man did we EAT. and eat and eat..and everything was so delicious and creative and homey! I love eating at home because my family knows all the things I can and can not eat and are very supportive about finding new recipes to take the place of my old flour-rich favorites. Mmmm it's making me hungry just to think about it!
Mostly it was just really great to be at home with the whole family again. It feels like we are spread out far now, although I recognize that this feeling most likely stems from living away from "home" for the very first time.
1 comment:
Thanks for the great pics and the great memories. I also remember when we all went for a walk and only made it about round the block because of I'm not sure why. And when we all worked on shoveling the driveway. And that crazy game that I don't know the name of that you guys play on the TV and the wonderful noise of having you all in the house, especially a lot of laughter.And 'nouns in a bag' and lots of guacamole. Con mucho gusto--Pop
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