Christmas on our own

Hey, Grant, did you make these? We love them and they look really good on our mantle with Santa holding them. Thank you. from Grammy and Papa

Much to the surprise of both Bob and me, we had a wonderful Christmas yesterday. Being on our own and so far away from the kids, I was sure that I would be teary all day and Bob was sure he would have to put up with my tearfulness all day but that didn't happen.

We received some gifts from kids and had a few for each other.

After a cup of coffee for Bob and tea for me, we opened our gifts.

They were all great and very much appreciated but the nicest thing about the day was relaxing together and having no responsibilities at all for the whole day. We didn't even have to cook a dinner.

We were invited next door (Giusseppe and Mimma's) for Christmas dinner with the Fortunato family. The food was definitely not what we're used to having for Christmas dinner, no turkey or ham, no sweet potatoes. Instead we had a delicious Sicilian dinner and good conversation with friends. We aren't fluent in Italian by any means but between the little English they speak and the little Italian we speak we are able to carry on decent conversations.

After dinner, Roberto and Bob worked together to clean out the chimney of our house. We had tried to have a fire in the fireplace a couple of times as the weather got cooler but got a house full of smoke---not good for breathing. Roberto got on the roof and saw that we had a huge bird's nest in the top of the chimney. After the nest was cleared out, we could enjoy a cozy Christmas evening reading our new books in front of a beautiful fire.

I do hope you have all had equally beautiful days for Christmas and the new year brings spiritual growth, good friends both old and new, and families to love. God Bless and Happy New Year.