Christmas

We had a delightfully cozy Christmas.

Ben's rock climbing partner, Sandy, invited us to spend Christmas Eve with his family, which was very relaxing.

They have a beautiful house on a lake, which was quite magical.

Our contribution to the wonderful dinner was a homemade apple pie, complete with a reindeer on top.

For the first time ever, we stayed home all day on Christmas, enjoying the fire, our presents, and each other.


We always went to my mother's, or to Ben's mother's, or both, on Christmas, so I thought it would be sad to stay home. Instead, it was very peaceful.

I thought about my Mom off and on all day, and felt her influence in so many ways. As a kind of remembrance, I made her famous cinnamon rolls and gave some to our neighbors, just like she used to do.

My favorite gift was from Paul, an "IOU" slip for free neck massages. He used some stencils that we had enjoyed together on earlier projects, which was pretty cool, and did the design and artwork on his own, which was even cooler.

Paul hates to write, so I was very touched that he spent all this time and effort on my present.

His massages are short, but very good, so I have something to look forward to. He usually tries to charge me for them, so the fact that he's willing to give me ten free ones is very sweet!