After driving most of the day, I arrived home to cold temperatures mid-afternoon Friday. Kay attended a dress-up Christmas dinner party at Diamante Country Club for our Care Zone at church. In as much as I had not intended to be home for another week and tired from driving, I did not attend.
On Saturday, we attended a memorial sera for cousin Walker Dunn at our childhood church in Bradford, Arkansas. While a sad and somber occasion, it was great seeing many cousins.
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| Overlooking #9 at Balboa |
We slept late on Sunday, and therefore did not attend church. Kay drove to Maumelle for an overnight visit with Karyn and her family, and a date day with Ridge on Monday. I played golf with Don Atchley at Balboa Golf Club, enjoying one of the Village’s great golf courses, but not the cool temps. Don and I played again on Monday, this time at Desoto Golf Club, and Kay returned home late in the afternoon.
Thursday, December 21, Kay and I drove to Memphis to spend all day with Jenny, Harper, and Brian; we had not seen them since late September.
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| My two beautiful girls! |
Christmas Eve was our big Christmas holiday celebration. The morning saw us at the Adams’ with Ron, Cheryl, Kaden, Karyn, Matt, and the kids—not as chaotic as I remember.
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| The matriarch and her husband |
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| Ron and Cheryl |
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| Karyn and Kaden |
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| Aker |
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| Ridge |
Kay and I attended Christmas Eve Candlelight and Communion service at COHUMC; this is a tradition we have honored since the beginning of our relationship some 18 years ago. Following the service we had Christmas Eve dinner at the Morris’ with Jim and Jackie, Jackie’s sister and her husband, Pam Williams, and Don Atchley. This is a new tradition that I really enjoy; reminds me of Christmas when I was growing up, absent the kids!
Back home, Kay and I exchanged gifts; this was quite humorous. We had been ordering gifts for each other since late November, having them shipped to friend’s houses, to our house in the Village, and to our RV site in the Rio Grande Valley. Consequently when all these were collected, we had forgotten to whom each belonged. We opted not to wrap them, instead leaving them in their Amazon Prime boxes. Each of us would begin opening a gift until we could identify it as belonging to one or the other, then passing off the gifts that belonged to the other. It was a hoot, and possibly a new tradition. That pretty much ended our Christmas holiday celebration.
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| Amazon Prime did our gift wrapping |
With all the hoopla out of the way, we were able to celebrate Christmas day in a more serious and somber mood. We deconstructed decorations, boxing them up and storing them in the crawl space for next year. We attended a potluck Christmas Dinner at our church, Christ of the Hills United Methodist Church during mid-afternoon; regretfully, or perhaps thankfully, most of the food was gone by the time I made it through the buffet line. I did manage to get a piece of pecan pie and ate it BEFORE the meal; good, but not up to Mom’s or Kay’s standard by any stretch of the imagination.
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