I know it's late to be talking about our Christmas trip to Montana and I could give you lots of reasons why this post is so late, but you're probably not really interested so I'll just continue with my report.
It was an interesting week, to say the least. There were 34 of us living in the same house for 6 days and that, in itself, offers a lot of opportunity to practice patience, understanding and love. We didn't always do it very well, but I think we ended the week with some ideas of how to do it better next time and we were still friends. To say we were still family is kind of silly because you don't really have any choice about that. But to be family and friends requires some effort and a lot of love on everyone's part.
As you can see from the photo, the kids (including a few of the older cousins that don't appear in this photo) had a great time building a couple of snowmen. I guess the reason this guy has a rifle and a cowboy hat was because we were in Montana. His size is the result of the effort of the older cousins (these kids' parents) and it took two or three of them to roll the bottom part of his body across the yard and then took a couple of them to lift the second and third parts on top. There was some snow on the ground when we arrived on December 22 and we got a little more, not much, but apparently enough to make it possible to build this guy and another one that wasn't complete when this photo was taken.
Some of the older cousins went snowboarding a couple of the mornings, we all played games, each family took a turn making dinner, we took our usual family photos with my daughter being the official photographer this time, and for the most part enjoyed being together. Christmas morning, after everyone had breakfast, was the usual time for opening gifts. We had our traditional Christmas dinner with everyone providing, and cooking, their usual part. Next December the family gathering will take place back in California and my kids are planning to come to Spain again to spend Christmas with me. Then in 2008 we will all be back in Montana.
I'm grateful for these memory-making times with Alan's family. It's a tradition that we don't want to give up.
2 comments:
I love this recap, even though I'm not reading it until March!
I'm glad you get together with his family, too :)
Yes, it's a very special time.
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