Thirty Days of Christmas

Well, the Christmas chaos has passed and I am able to breath a little, sit in the remains of wrapping paper, boxes and toys strewn on the floor and reflect on this landmark Christmas. This is the first Christmas where a child didn't come home (Fern), ...the first one that Maria brought a boy (Aaron, behind Maria in the doorway), ...Rick's first Christmas with family in 15 or more years and his first with us, ...the first Christmas Eve party actually held in Mama's dining room in many, many years.... the first Posada party that all my family came to, ...the first celebration where we sang to baby Jesus out in the barn with Dolly Donkey and the goats...but I'm getting ahead of the story.
This is a picture from the weekend after Thanksgiving, which is when Christmas started for us . Fern and Ben came down from New York to spend the weekend. Since Fern was going to England with Ben for Christmas, we went ahead and started the celebration early. After a big dinner with the guys at Waypoint (the alcoholic recovery center where Nick and Cori live and work) we sat around the piano and sang and told stories until late that night. The next day we had a family soccer game which was a sight to behold. I couldn't believe that all but two of the field full of people were my children. That night we made home made, hand cranked ice cream. Everyone decorated the tree and we had a big fire in the yard, roasted marshmallows and sang. We brought out every instrument we could find... bells, drums, Ben on the violin..it was great.
I told Rick that night, after my sweet grandchildren had kissed me goodnight and gone home, that I could die right then and feel like I had reached the peak of my life. It just doesn't get any better.

starting over

Starting over, this blog and life, ...It has been a long summer and fall in some ways and short in others. Raymond has been lamenting that it is only a few days until Christmas and it was just the 4th of July. Welcome to the world of grown-ups, son! A lot has happened and changed in half a year. So many changes this summer, life going in a new direction for all of us in one way or another....S. finally confronting some of his issues and getting some long awaited intervention after "the crisis", Maria moving out on her own, Rick leaving his winter job in Alaska to come here. These pictures are from our "shotgun wedding" as Cori called it, long in planning but short in preparations. We had been waiting for Rick's mom to get better and get out of the hospital and after two months, it looked like she would be there even longer. Then, one day she called and was coming home the next day and thought that she felt well enough to come down for the weekend. Two days of planning and arranging and, on October 14, almost a year from the day I got the first letter from Rick in 2006, the family was at Panther Creek picnic area for a short ceremony. Thirty three and a half years after our parting at Camp Cohutta Springs we were back together again for better or worse for whatever years we have left. Fern was the only one of the kids that didn't come for the wedding since she had been down here the weekend before for her dad's wedding. How ironic is that? I told her that attending one parents wedding in a month was enough stress for anyone.
I will have to post some pictures from Thanksgiving tomorrow and get caught up. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving with all of the kids at home and around a campfire singing and being silly. It has been a long time coming, the wounds of the last couple of years starting to heal, some of the grief and anger and depression that we have all been through starting to smooth out into looking at the future again. Not a bad looking bunch of kids and grandkids.....but what a couple of old hippies the bride and groom are!