Goodbye 2006

My family got together this Christmas in Jasper, Indiana, where my sister now lives with her family. It was great to have everyone together again after two years. We mostly chased the kids (5, 4, 3, & 2) around, and nibbled on Christmas cookies. We watched Christmas Vacation, a holiday tradition, and dressed up on matching pjs sent by our stepmother, also a tradition (I would post this picture, but then would risk the wrath of my husband and siblings). We went to church Christmas eve, we ate ham & beef tenderloin on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and we opened all the gifts that had waited under the tree so patiently (wait, it was the kids who waited so patiently). It was such a blessing to be around the ones we love and to share the joy of Christmas.

On the last day I was there, my sister got out a book that our Grandmother Winslow had given her when she was an early teenager, called something like My Family Christmas, in which the owner is to record all the memories and details of Christmases (who was there, where you were, and what happened that year) as they go by. We flipped through it and couldn't even believe that she had recorded more than 20 years of Christmases, and the book will soon be filled. When the book began in the 1980s, she pasted photos our mom took of us for the family Christmas card-- now she is pasting in photos of her own kids, 2 & 4. My how time flies. It's so good to get together with family to remember the times, both good and bad, and how the years have passed.

We have had lots of traditions in my family, many of which have gone with my dad, but Paul and I are starting new ones as a family of our own, which we know will be cherished and remembered for years to come. Goodbye 2006... hello 2007!