Monday, December 30, 2013

Ding Dong the Tree is Down

We hosted Tom’s older kids on Sunday. It was one last day of presents and food and family.

It was also the first time in years that all of Tom’s five kids were in the same house at the same time. It was lovely.



Tom’s oldest son, J and his wife K were the first to arrive with their three kids. Their middle child, G is the only granddaughter so she was thrilled to be in a house with GIRLS. We had four boxes of clothes for her to go through and take with her when she left. She was thrilled to her girlie little toes to get the clothes O has outgrown and I was thrilled to my practical little toes to get rid of all four boxes of items we’ll never need/use again. It was win/win.

Tom’s oldest daughter, J was the next to arrive with her fiancé M. They were driving from the kids’ mom’s home in Huntington to Philadelphia, with a stop at our house for the gathering. We got to see J and M on Christmas Eve but it was still great to have them there again.

Finally, about a half hour later, D, Tom’s youngest son and his fiancé arrived with their two sons.

It was a houseful and we all loved it.

A and O love having company and I could tell that Tom was just happy to have all his favorite people in the same place at the same time.

We opened the last of the Christmas 2013 presents, at a big ham, potato wedges, green bean casserole dinner and then all the kids (Alyssa, Olivia, D, G, B, I & N) put on a concert for us using all the musical instruments they found in the toy room. It was great fun.

Then it was time for everyone to go home. Tom’s sons and their families had an hour and a half drive to get home and J and M were facing an eight hour drive, minimum to get them back to Philadelphia. Yikes.

About ten minutes after the last car pulled out of the driveway, Tom and I had all the boxes for the Christmas decorations lined along the wall in the living room, ready for the decorations to be securely packed away for another year.

We were ready to have our front window back, the only south-facing window on the first level of our house.

As lovely as our Christmas was this year, we’re moving on, glancing back at the wonders of 2013 and gearing up for new adventures to come.

1 comment:

Julie said...

I took down all the decorations on Sunday. What a relief to have them gone and have my house back.