After Math

We're just barely back from our Thanksgiving vacation marathon. I've missed so much online, and it's so beautiful catching up. Christmas decorating is so unique and beautiful, and I'm so dazzled already.

Thanks so much to those who visited and followed while I've been away! So nice to come home to.

Our house was full of visiting family that I had to miss because I was away visiting my lovely in-law family. Odd, because my in-law family all gathered in the gorgeous house of a family member who was also away for the holiday.

Everyone hit the door after long travels through airports and traffic at a crazy travel time of year. The two of us were still sick and wondered what on earth we were doing leaving home. I got singled out and all but strip searched right off the bat at the airport. It also took us two hours to travel just twelve miles through LA traffic at the other end.

You start counting up the costs and man hours, and get a bit curmudgeony. But when everyone starts to gather, it dissipates, and all we see is the miracle of love and cooperation.

We chose our absent hostesses' Potuguese china that she once hauled home in a suitcase. Our chef brother used the gas grill after finding that the turkey wouldn't fit in the oven. Delicious! Three or four other cooks dove into the search for implements in a strange kitchen.

The flatware on the table was gifted, one place-setting at a time since the reciever was a teenager, by the eighty-eight year old aunt who now sat with us at the table. 

A few in the group gathered flowers on a morning walk through the lovely woods of Santa Barbara.

I was assigned the happy task to arrange them on the table.

 I chose to simply lay them in a garland. No one was scandalized by the one or two stray ants that crawled out later!

It was one of the most enjoyable gatherings I've ever attended. Well worth the cost.

A little bit like camping out for a few days, and just as fun. The mix of young and old is so refreshing. At brunch the next morning my hip young nephew ordered a little hair of the dog Bloody Mary. Jane, the family matriarch quipped, "I'd have one of those too if I wasn't ninety years old!"

It all adds up to priceless.

Right down to the ponies in the paddock.

I'm travel exhausted, but so mentally ready for the rest!

 The SEASON has launched!

 Happy, Merry, Ya'll!

Ciao! for now!

Jacqueline