Thursday, December 27, 2012

Home for the holidays.

Aaron and I are very lucky in that our families are relatively close to each other. A few hours' drive in one or two directions from wherever we are bring us to more people we love and miss. Of course, we never get to stay as long as we'd like to or see all the people we'd love to, but maybe we can make more frequent trips home to remedy that.

We usually stay at his parent's house in northeast Alabama, and drive down to Montgomery and Birmingham to see mine. Aaron has a pretty big "family" that was birthed from his dad's time as a preacher in several area churches. It's actually quite fantastic to meet all of this fun, happy people of all ages. We spent one evening talking to this older dude about his knee replacements and how he had spent all day gluing a $160 cherry table back together after crashing down on it. He had about three stories about his wife that ended with, "She liked it, so we got it." He was a lot of fun.

We managed to get to Prattville to see my extended family, which now seems to include about 37 new grandkids. I'm only exaggerating a little on that. We're all getting older and so are our parents, but it's honestly more fun than it was when we were kids. Everyone seems to be getting comfortable with who they are.

On Christmas Eve we went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner with my family in Birmingham. I got to see my grandmother and older brother for the first time in a long time, so that alone made my night. But my mom and stepdad were there, too. And while we missed my little brothers, it was truly a wonderful evening.

I could go on with all the little details, but I won't bore you and will just say that Christmas was wonderful this year. It's always a struggle for me because I haven't always had happy holidays, but the past two years have been pretty great, with this year taking the lead. I got to spend a good amount of time with children, which made it impossible not to feel the magic they were feeling.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. We're headed back to our new home in a few days and will celebrate NYE with friends, then on the 2nd I start a 2 1/2 week intensive class. (Yep, I'm going back for more educating and not giving up, but more on that later!)

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