“Tradition is an explanation for acting without thinking”

Whew!  What a year it has been. 

I cannot believe that today is Christmas.  I remember being young and people saying that the years go by faster the older you get.  I never dreamed that they meant 28.  Where did the year go?  I know I packed as much into it as possible, but it literally flew by.  For the past two days, I've been with my wonderful family.  It was actually the first holiday in a long time, maybe ever, that we have not argued about something.  It's been a pretty tough year financially, and I think maybe that made us all take a step back and look at what Christmas is all about.  It's not about the gifts...it's about celebrating and being with the ones you love.  I mean, the gifts are oh-so-nice, but it's not the reason for Christmas.  I think people overlook that too much. 

Yesterday, Christmas eve, at about 3:30, we made ourselves a couple of cocktails, made our Christmas dinner...which was Thanksgiving all over again (and I'm MORE than ok with this) and giggled and told stories about our grandparents that are no longer with us.  We cried, we laughed, and we all ate entirely too much!  The highlight of the evening was our Uncle Jerry's gift to the twins.  They each got remote control four wheelers.  We giggled at those boys for sooo long.  They seriously hung my moon.  Needless to say, nothing we got them-and nothing that Santa got them even came close to Jerry's gift.  :)

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Now, for this evening...for as long as I can remember, we have gone to our favorite bar, Edna's, on Christmas.  It's open 365 days a year and it has become one of my favorite traditions.  It's not necessarily a "balls to the wall" kind of night (not every time anyway), but it's just something that we've learned to love and it's kind of the unspoken "last call" of our Christmas.  Oh how I look forward to my lunchbox this year.  If you don't know what a lunchbox is, I highly recommend that you google Edna's & lunchboxes.  It will be worth your while.  Promise.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Update:  It was another successful Christmas evening at Ednas.  Edna, herself, showed up - never one to disappoint.  She danced on tables, true to form and even took some fake lunchboxes with me.  Here is the one and ONLY, Edna Ruth.

And here are my friends that were there that night...we had a ball.