Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas night, and my family's festivities has come to a close. We spend so much time getting ready for the holiday -- the shopping, wrapping gifts, preparing food, and worrying about all the details for the evening. This year my family was also concerned with my husband's ailing grandmother, who has been in a rehabilitation hospital for the last few weeks. She was well enough to come home to spend Christmas Eve with us for several hours, and again today for our Christmas dinner. She's still pretty ill, and she has a struggle ahead, trying to get better with medications and physical therapy. But we were grateful to have her with us, and we enjoyed our Christmas as a family. We were all together for Christmas Eve, and we had good food, wine, lots of gift wrap everywhere as the mass ripping commenced, and laughs .... lots of laughs. That, my internet friends, is the most important Christmas gift of all -- family enjoying each other's company and making memories. Makes my heart smile.

Since I was part of the family celebration, I didn't take that many pictures. More important this time to be part of the memory that to be documenting it. But I've included some favorite photos from our holidays. Merry Christmas everyone!

-- S

Daphne, the family dog. Isn't she a cutie?


Christopher has always been fascinated by trains, and really loves his Polar Express train set. He plays with it every opportunity he gets during the holidays.


Kate, Annemarie and I on Christmas Eve. Photo taken by Kathleen Swain.



My husband's Christmas gift from his sister and brother-in-law? A custom made print with our last name on the jersey of one of the players. It's soooo Jon. :)


We have a small collection of snowglobes, and these are our Christmas favorites: our Merry Christmas Charlie Brown, Starbucks and Coca Cola Polar Bear globes.


This was my Christmas gift from my kids -- a beautiful necklace with these heartfelt charms. It came with a card that said "believe in the beauty of your dreams" and they added a camera charm to it. As I started my photography business this year, this meant so much to me, and it brought tears to my eyes. My kids did well, didn't they? :)



Our family Christmas card this year.