Holiday Preparations

This week has been a scurry of activity for me.  I had a four day weekend which I used to do all of my holiday baking, clean my house before my family arrived and do my grocery shopping for several meals that I had in mind for this weekend.  I also picked up a couple of last minute gifts for my bowling team.  The Tuesday before Christmas at bowling is the night we have a potluck meal at the bowling alley; each member of each team brings a dish to share with everyone.  There is a long table set up where we all just help ourselves during the course of the night.  My teammates and I also exchange gifts with each other.  The evening is always so fun.  Also, each bowler brings a $10 gift.  When every bowler rolls their first strike for the night, they get to go pick out a gift from the pile.  It's neat to see what everyone is opening at their tables. 
But Thursday the twenty third is the day I was most anxious for.  That's the day my family would all be arriving for Christmas at my house! 

 My tree before my family arrived with gifts.

Cathy was scheduled to fly in about five thirty PM.  Kevin's family was driving and would be at my house sometime in the evening.  During the day I finished up my cleaning and went to work making a big pot of chili for supper that night.  Then when everyone was here we could eat whenever.  Sadly, Dad and Beverly wouldn't be able to make the trip. 
As it turned out, Cathy's flight was an hour and fifteen minutes late.  Kevin and Susan would be in Omaha about seven thirty PM.  If it turned out how I thought it would, we'd all arrive at my house at the same time!  Guess what?  We did!  As Cathy and I were getting close to the corner to my house, we saw Kevin and Susan's van crossing the intersection at the same corner!  We followed them onto my driveway!  Funny! 
We got everyone and all their things into my house and then sat down to eat chili.  Everyone was hungry and we all had so much that we wanted to talk about at the same time! 
Later I helped to get everyone settled into a room for the night and we went to bed about eleven PM.  I had to work the next morning and was hoping that I'd get to leave early and start my five day holiday weekend! 


My tree after everyone arrived with gifts!

It was fun to have so much activity in my house.  One of my cats, Yoda, wasn't so sure about it but the other loved all the attention and had to check out all their things.  He's the nosy one....Trouble.   It was going to be a fun weekend.