what a merry christmas

we are so grateful and blessed to have enjoyed the holiday with our daughters, family, and friends. There are no huge highlights this year, but rather a pattern of calm joy. Now that I write that, I think that calm joy has been my aspiration in most situations. We baked cookies with friends on the 23rd:

On the 24th, we went to the Mays' as has become our tradition. The visit was nice and the three hour drives on both sides were better than expected. That night, we prepared for Santa:
The next morning, Joe and I were up before either of the girls. We had the tree lights on and were enjoying coffee when Nora peeked from the stairs and whispered, "He eat my cookie!"
The girls enjoyed opening their gifts. Nora was so pleased that Santa brought her the rocketship and fishing pole she requested. When I asked her later about her favorite gift, she said her rocketship without hesitation. Nora was a joy to watch open gifts this year. She was very gracious and polite saying things like, "This is just what I wanted!" or "This is my heart's wish!" all the while cleaning the wrapping paper up as she went.

We went to Mom's on Christmas Day. She is now just five minutes away! How I love that. It was our first Christmas without Dad and we all missed him. We don't sit around mourning him -- partly because my mom would never allow it. She is quite careful to remain strong (not robotic, but strong) in front of the girls. He would have been so proud of my mom, loved that Ben gave Becca a 'promise ring' this year and gotten a kick the plays that Johna and Hannah created. Even better, he would have been annoyed at the same things that annoyed me. And most of all, he would have loved little Roberta.