Christmas is here again!

Merry Christmas to you all!

I'm sitting here this Christmas morning, full of thoughts of gratefulness.
I'm thinking about our wonderful friends and family who have carried us this far. I'm also thinking of friends who are celebrating the kind of first Christmas you don't want to celebrate. The ones without a loved one.

Dominic and I went to our other family for dinner last night. Our other family is the one we're lucky enough to have in addition to the ones we were born into!

I volunteered to bring cookies. I figured I could put Dom to work again. I couldn't bring just one kind though. I had to make a couple. And some chocolate nut treats also. And then I had to bake a cake. I really wanted to bake a buche de Noel, but I chickened out and just made a gingerbread sheet cake cut in the shape of a tree. Complete with meringue mushrooms though. And as it was baking, I remarked to Dom that houses should smell of gingerbread at Christmas time.

As tray after tray of cookies and sweets were laid out, (the hostess had also made delicious cookies), someone commented on all the different things I brought and couldn't believe how many different things I'd made.  Here's the thing: Aside of the fact that my Grandmother whom I adore made several different cookies every year, I was home and I could! And I didn't realize what a big deal that was to me until last night I was washing up the last minute hustle of dishes I couldn't wash before we left for the party. I had a flash back of that dark little kitchen in Sacramento with the metal sink that made such a racket no matter how gently you set an item in the sink. I then could not for the life of me remember what we had for Christmas dinner. I remember it getting really hot once we started cooking. And we sat around the coffee table eating, in a daze in an unfamiliar place surrounded by Christmas cards we were so grateful to receive and a tinsel tree I'd snagged for fifty cents the Christmas before.

All those thoughts came tumbling out as I wiped down the counters and breathed a sigh of relief to be home. Last night's dinner was Dominic's first social outing as well. He managed the steps with the help of our family and it's another milestone for him. Perhaps the highlight for him was when one of the toddlers at the gathering just sat down next to him and looked up at him with her sweet face and watched a little cartoon with him.

I got up early this morning to let our neighbor's goats out. I walked to the end of the drive and in a big circle just to enjoy the cold quiet of the morning. The sun is out and the air is crisp. And we're home. And Dominic is cancer free and getting better every day.

Christmas has many layers of meaning for us. Celebrating being home also has many layers. And as we peel through all the layers together today, we send all our love to you and wish you the merriest of days.