My view from the window seat: Holidays- part 1

This holiday season was a breath of fresh air and whirlwind all at once.
I stopped working on December 19 and did not turn on (or think about) work until I attempted a return on January 3. (Though a most vicious cold changed that plan.) It was glorious.
I realized the sesspool of negative went away within a day. All I needed was a time out. Time to breathe. Time to laugh. Glorious.
My first few days of vacation were spent chilling with my papa. He is now "retired" again. I say it in quotes because he has "retired" a few times in the last six years. I have stopped congratulating him or buying him a card. Because every time the contract ends he states, "this is it" and then in 6 months he is back at it. When mom finally retires, we'll acknowledge them in some way. Until that day, I am still not truly a believer that my papa is done with work.
Anyway, so I enjoyed the retired guy's routine. We ran errnads, did "lunch", played a few games, and got ready for the holidays. I also got a little time with my mom, just us.
Then we headed up north to the cottage for the little Christmas--just the 5 of us and the dogs.
There was just enough snow to make it feel cozy. Just enough egg nog to make things a little silly. And as always with my family, plenty of laughter and joy. We exchanged presents on Saturday.Jenny loves to open presents and has totally influenced the rest of us, so now every little gift gets its own package---so the treee is overfull. And every present is well thought out (well maybe not every one, but most). And we watch as each person opens the presents and talk about it. So opening presents takes like 2-3 hours. We have snacks and drink time outs, but we open for a long time. And the nicest part is that we don't need to have presents. We'd be fine just in the company of eachother. I am the luckiest.
So in the vane of spending time with eachother, we decided to go bowling on SUnday afternoon. The bowling alley was closed, so instead we opted for a bar crawl. I cannot express the ridiculous fun that we had. RIDICULOUS!
On Christmas Day, my parents were hosting two aunts and my uncle for dinner. A & J were able to come as well, so J's dad joined too. The only people that would be missing would be Aunt Jody and Tee. Mom was so sad. And then right after Christmas morning mass, the doorbell rang and Jody and tee surprised my mom. I swear I haven't heard a squeal like that since high school. She was beaming. And her Christmas was complete. Everyone that could be there, was there. The house was filled with people. It got loud (and louder). The fire was cozy. Chef Ferdie made an amazing meal. And the holiday season had just started.
Lovely.