The Christmas marathon is officially over and it feels good...

I do love Christmas, but after all the planning, budgeting, shopping, decorating, more shopping, wrapping, mailing, etc... it's a relief to be on the other side of it all.

Our Christmas was quiet, but nice... two of the three older girls were here (we celebrated with our oldest daughter several days earlier because her family was headed out of town for the holiday), and both girls spent Christmas Eve night with us, even driving through some nasty weather to get here. It was so nice to have most of my "chicks" back in the nest on that special night...

We spent the day at home, visiting, playing games, sledding... and K and I even stole a little time to play guitar together. It was a very nice Christmas... it looked like a Christmas card outside, and we had nowhere to go and nothing to do but enjoy the day.

S wasn't here for Christmas, but came on the 26th and spent the weekend with us. All the kids (M, R and S) were a little unsettled, but (whew!) made it through the weekend without any major problems.

I took the big tree down today, and packed almost all of the Christmas decorations back away again.  I did leave the little "fishing" Christmas tree up though, it's so small and cheery... I think I'll just leave it up for awhile.

The "accessibility specialist" workmen are coming tomorrow to (finally!!) start on the modifications to M's room. Since he's identified as being severely disabled and in need of long term care, he's on a special Medicaid plan that will pay for some home modifications. I'm excited to get the work done... but kind of hate to have the house torn up again so soon after putting it back together after the recent countertop debacle. (Something I still need to blog about...) It will be so worth it to get the job done though.

I'll close with a few photos of the "fishing tree"... (a tree dedicated to Joe's love of fishing)

Most of the ornaments are fishing related...



... although I just couldn't resist this little Santa on a tractor!



fd