Anyone Who's Everyone

Christmas itself was pretty quiet for me. Delia was in Eau Claire with her fiancé's family, and the Onas gathered with Alona's family. They invited Eric and me to join them, but Eric wanted to keep things low-key because he was still recovering from his surgery. So I made roast duck for the two of us on Christmas Eve:



any my traditional Christmas breakfast on Christmas morning:



In my family, however, Christmas isn't over on the 26th of December. My extended family gathers between Christmas and New Year's day:



My brother, who lives in New York, has been faithfully bringing his entire family out for family week for decades. We gather in various configurations: some go out to movies. Some of my nephews and nieces went to one of my nephew's house to get a lesson in throwing pottery. We gathered with my mom for lunch one day in the party room of her assisted living facility. We gathered in the evenings to eat hors d'ouevres, cook food together, and play games. And as always, we gathered at my sister Cindy's house on New Year's Eve and spent the day together, feasting on Chinese take out and sharing memories. All of the nieces and nephews had stories to tell of their memories of family week. My brother-in-law remarked how splendid it is to see the rich and deep relationships that the cousins share with one another, which have been nurtured by our family traditions of getting together every year to enjoy one another's company.

This year we had the additional joy of two new babies joining the festivities. M is a genuine extrovert who obviously had a wonderful time flirting with everyone, and when Fiona and Alone arrived each evening, there were plenty of eager volunteers to cuddle with her.

We genuinely enjoy each other.

I hope you all had as splendid a holiday as my family and I did.

This is my last collage of the year, but I intend to continue next year.

Image description: Top: members of a family, men and women, smile at the camera. Below: a table covered with a red tablecloth set for Christmas breakfast. Right: an older woman holding a walker (Peg's mom) stands beside a younger woman (Peg). Lower right corner: four young woman smile. Left corner: a silver candlestick with a gold lit candle with two glittering snowflake brooches.

Christmas



Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

Eric had surgery last Friday and needed to have someone accompany him and stay with him for twenty-four hours afterward. The aftercare turned out to be a bit more intense than expected afterward, and so I ended up staying at his place all weekend to assist him.

We were very quiet together. It occurred to me on Sunday, as we sat together in his living room, drinking coffee and looking out the living room window at the winter landscape, that it was the winter Solstice. A year ago on the winter Solstice, I was hosting a solstice party. If I had been at home, I would have lit all my candles to mark the day. Being with him on that day as he was recovering seemed fitting.

The winter solstice is a time for deep rest and healing, for reflection and resilience.

He is feeling much better now and counts the surgery as a success.

Image description: A window with a winter view outside. A pair of feet clad in red and white striped socks are propped up on the windowsill beside a red mug with a steaming hot beverage. A hand holding a couple of pills hovers above the feet.

Rest



Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.