merry christmas!

another christmas come and gone, and before it's even cold in its grave here i am blogging about it. This year was much more memorable than most, with near-death experiences, buried hatchets and much, much more.

my christmas weekend started friday with my getting off work early...at 3pm. my sister and i had been planning to hang out that night, but we moved it to saturday so we could each have a veg-out night before the busy weekend. saturday was alot of running around and sunday was church, followed by the annual christmas eve rock salt crusted prime rib dinner at rachie's.

today was dinner at my aunt and uncle's, which included their two children, my two sisters, my brother-in-law, two nieces, two nephews, grammy and me. it was really fun and we laughed alot - sometimes at and sometimes with. the highlights of this holiday were...


dinner at rachie's with people who were living on the streets this time last year.

getting a new pair of pajamas.

sleeping in.

seeing my nieces and nephews.

people enjoying being together that have not been interested in communicating for several months.

seeing mom breathe again after she got a whole grape tomato lodged in her throat and was starting to turn purple at the dinner table.

laughing afterward until we couldn't breathe at how dad mechanically continued to eat mashed potatoes with a look of panic on his face while my uncle gave my mom the Heimlich maneuver and my aunt called 911.

listening to my nearly-four-year-old niece sing 'barbie girl' in its entirety.

being reminded of how much God has done in my life in the last 5 years to get me to the place where spending a full weekend with friends and family made me more happy than exhausted, with no hint of overwhelm.

merry christmas, everyone.