Christmas Eve and the house is full of our kids and our grandbaby. Chaos and laughter aplenty. There's just something about this year that I can't pinpoint. Perhaps it's because Christmas has snuck up on us...no snow for just long enough to hold off the 'feeling' of the holiday time, not sure what. But having my whole family together is just making my heart swell with love and thankfulness.
Pat and I are off work for the next couple weeks and get to spend some quality time with the two younger kids and each other. Just so much to be grateful for, my feelings from Thanksgiving have leaked into now and only grown more. We have gifts under the tree, great food on the table, great kids and their significant others, a wonderfully adorable grandson, annoying animals, and jobs to return to where the people are very wonderful. Most importantly, we have a home where we can enjoy most of this..might not be a mansion, but it's home..that is where our kids have and are growing and where Pat and I have made a great life. One I wouldn't trade for nothing.
The weather isn't making things easy for our kids and they will all be stranded here for the night but that's ok, we're planning a night of games and what I'm sure will be a night full of jokes and laughs that none of us will soon forgets.
Our bellies are stuffed now and we await for the late arrival of our oldest daughters fiance...he had to work today but is plowing his way here as I write. There's a plate of food in the fridge waiting and we promised him we will wait for his arrival before we begin the presents. Soon and Pat and I cannot wait! It's so very nice to have the means to give to our children...many years of struggles have finally paid off. It reminds me that there is a light at the end of that tunnel. But also to realize there are many tunnels...
It's just a good day to be married, a good day to be a mom and grandma, it's a good day to love, laugh and feel alive...Christmas 2009 has brought with it many new realizations and emotions. I miss my father and wish he were here. But that cannot be so...I look at the benches he made for my daycare all those years ago and verbally thanked him as my family of 8 1/2 sat down for dinner. I see the snow falling and think about him all those years ago with his Shenanigans hat on trudging behind that snowblower first doing our driveway and then moving on to a neighbors. I imagine him laughing at us and making some wisecrack as we shovel our way out of this mess that is the biggest storm we've had in Minnesota in years.....so much.
It's just a wonderful Christmas but as I said, I cannot figure out just why that is...I do hope that everyone out there in cyberworld has a stupendous Christmas! I know that we are! Merry Christmas to all of you!!!!
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