First, I must report that my brother and his family did arrive safely right at supper time last night.  We are having a lovely visit:  the 4 cousins seem to have bonded pretty well, and the adults are having a nice time visiting and catching up.  They went to visit Great-Grandma Humphrey today (plus my aunt and cousin and her baby).  I didn’t get to go because I had to go to school for the Holiday Music Program.    It was nice, but sitting on a bleacher for 1.5 hours is a killer.

The prompt on the 17th was “I saw this and thought of you” — to journal about perfect gifts, either that you’ve given or received.  I really struggled with what I was going to say, but I’m happy with how it turned out.

The page about food took me ages longer than it should have because Photoshop crashed on me last night and I had NOT saved in awhile.  So, I gave up and went to bed.  It turned out OK, but not terrific.  I’m trying to remember that I don’t have to knock every single page out of the park — it’s supposed to be a learning experience, but it’s also supposed to be about reflecting and not creating amazing works of “art” every day.

I think you can probably read the text of the first OK, the journaling on the food page reads:

The only food that our family “requires” for Christmas is Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake.  I have fond memories
of our Christmas Brunches at the Johnsons.  The only other food I remember from those events was the custom
omelettes Dr. Johnson made.

Depending on the year, and whether or not we are in Iowa, we host Christmas Dinner for my Mom’s extended
family.  In the past this meal has been a traditional turkey dinner with all of the fixings.  Last year, though, we did
something different: I made several batches of pizza dough, bought lots of pizza toppings, and let everyone make their
own personal pizza.  It was a lot of fun, and we’ll be sure to do it again!

With David and his family here, we are planning on a nice meal of some sort on Friday:  I don’t know what that
will be, but I suspect it might be turkey, potatoes, green bean casserole, and other yummy foods like that.

We usually get together for a nice meal with my husband’s family at some point during the month.  My mother-in-
law is a wonderful cook, and even though she has decided to stop doing the turkey meal (which always requires so
much last minute work), we always eat well at her house.  This year’s meal was a momentous occasion: Grandma E.
decided that the 4 grandkids were old enough to use the fancy dishes and real glasses!

We’ll be at my sister’s for Christmas Day, and I don’t know what she has planned for Christmas Dinner.  She is
8 months pregnant and has a toddler.  None of us will complain if she decides that we will be having a Traditional
Pizza Meal rather than something requiring significant amounts of cooking.

************

Today’s prompt:  write a letter to Santa.  I got Will to write his, I need to twist Joe’s arm to write one as well.   I can’t decide if my letter is going to be serious (i.e. Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Man), greedy (i.e. a list of “things”) or wishful thinking (i.e. an extra hour or 2 a day).   I suppose that Katie should write one as well, although I don’t know what she would ask for, as her life is pretty perfect the way it is.

TTFN-

Suzanne