A Good Time Was. . .

had by all - except for the cat! With all the excitement in the house, our family cat, Tigger, escaped to spend a few quiet moments on the deck railing. He thinks he's quite extraordinary, and we think so too!

Christmas began with the arrival of the Boise Paulson clan on Friday evening, followed by the McCleeses (my sister and family) on Saturday afternoon. I had made my traditional salmon chowder, ready for whenever any one of us wanted a bit to eat. After chowing down, we attended the Christmas Eve candlelight service at church. This was a very special year for Kirsten as she was finally old enough to have her own candle! The service was beautiful as always. After greeting many friends, we headed home to our own little martini party. Then I had to stay up late as I had forgotten to finish stretching the "W" by M Designs that I had stitched for my DD Mystie. So I finished that, got it in the frame and went to bed!

Christmas morning traditions were postponed a few hours to attend church - it was Sunday after all! The kids were cooperative and didn't give us a hard time for making them wait for their gifts. We got started with the opening probably about 1 p.m. It takes awhile as there were 21 of us and we open one gift at a time so everyone can enjoy the opening. You can see that Brendan played Santa this year, handing out the gifts - in this picture it's grandson Hans' turn to unwrap.

Soon it was time to get dinner started. I had decided to try preparing a prime rib roast this year. For such a crowd as ours, I bought a 17 lb. slab on sale at Safeway. It was easy to prepare and delicious! My home really isn't designed for very large dinners, but we manage! We seated ten at the table, six at the kitchen island, and four at the card table. Most of the time the kids are downstairs watching tv, playing computer games, or just gabbing and playing. Upstairs the adults usually have the dining table covered with laptops, the family being mainly composed of computer geeks of one sort or another!

I so appreciate all of you who have sent me wishes for good health! I did feel much better the next day. And although having a housefull for four days could be stressful - and it used to be much more stressful for me - we're all just a big, happy family getting together, getting along, and so happy to being doing so!!