Happy Holiday

More than the title of a delightful Bing Crosby song, "Happy Holiday" perfectly describes the season here. Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I like the cold, I like the decorations, I love Christmas lights, and I'm not such a hypocrite that I'd deny liking presents. But what trumps those every time is family and friends. I absolutely love having a packed house, having family stay over, having friends over. I love catching up and laughing together, playing games, losing at ping pong. The night before last, Kim, Becca, and I stayed up past four-thirty in the morning talking and gossiping. A long, illuminating, exciting, hilarious conversation. When the rooster started crowing for the second time, warning of the imminent sunrise, we retired. I spent another hour awake, reading and writing a bit, before I woke up several times, pen poised in mid-sentence. Leo kept me company last night. I was tucking in to a new chapter, when I heard him scratching at my door. I let him in, and he proceeded to explore every nook and cranny. He began chewing on the bouquet of flowers from Kim and Darren's wedding, and then he decided he'd rather chew on the cords attached to the window blinds. He almost toppled my mint plants, but I rescued them, and distracted him with some pretty ribbon. Anyway, it was good to see him interested in something other than food. Today is New Year's Eve, and while I type away busily on this post (blindly too, as the lights are off and I can't see the keyboard), Dad is busy taking apart the vacuum, Mom is folding laundry, and Becca is probably off talking to Jacob or playing with her rubiks cube. Me, I'm going to finish this post and get some brunch, and then see if we have enough potting soil for me to repot my plants. Tonight, TJ and Susan will be coming over for New Year's festivities, and I hope we get around to playing a few games. Maybe we might even play Balderdash, my absolute favorite game ever. No one ever wants to play Balderdash; we've not played it here in over a year. You need a table-full of people to play, and they have to be creatively-minded people. Oh well, enough about that. Leo beckons.