It's been a rough couple of holiday seasons for my family. We did our best to make them special. We tried building new traditions to be celebrated in a new place, but it was beginning to feel pretty hopeless. This year, Kat and I agreed that we would not make ourselves crazy trying to do too much. We agreed to make it as easy on ourselves as possible.
With THE day approaching, it suddenly hit me how much fun it would be to have Mike and John join us for the holidays. All it took was: a mention; a few check-ins on both sides; booking the flights; et, voila...I was picking them up at Lambert International on the morning of the 23rd.
Of course, I know that changing the composition of any group impacts the whole of the original group. Our "whole" was majorly impacted. It made no difference if it was cousins on Christmas Eve, Mom and Dad at Hidden Lake on Christmas Day, or friends and siblings around the kitchen table over morning coffee that rolled right on in to pizza lunches; John and Mike spread cheer wherever they went.
It seemed that: 411 was a living, breathing place for the first time in way more than the 2 years that Mom and Dad have been at Hidden Lake; Mom was feeling special and didn't talk about everything being the "pits"; Kat was smiling; cousins were "cohesing" and planning a 2015 summer trip to see me in France; and, I'd had friends come for the holidays for the first time in all of my 60 years. Hmmm, guess I should have been doing this long before now!
Huge Merci to Mike and John for coming for Christmas AND becoming part of our family. I know you don't necessarily see what I see, but this was our nicest Christmas in a very long time.
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