I dropped our Denver relatives off at the airport early this morning and returned to a quieter and emptier house than we’ve had in about ten days. The decorations are still up and the college kid is still with us, but the holiday season has ended.
We had a busy and mostly fun week-plus of holiday celebrations. S’s brother from Boston and his family were in town for about a week over Christmas, staying with another sister. The Denver folks came in for four days over New Year’s and bunked-up at our house. Over the holiday week we had a Christmas Eve gathering at another local’s house, Christmas Day brunch and dessert at our house, New Year’s Eve at our house, and New Year’s day bowling followed by a lunch at a local’s. Also sprinkled in there was a sleepover at our house by the Boston cousins and then an adult lunch at the new Restoration Hardware in the massive DeHaan Estate.
Other than a few small cousin meltdowns and S spilling red wine on M’s white jeans – which miraculously came out with no trace! – we survived without too much nonsense.
The girls all had good Christmases. They mostly got boring, teenage stuff like clothes, makeup, and shoes. M did get a mini-Keurig for her dorm room, which is kind of fun. Both M and C spent New Year’s Eve with friends. L had the boyfriend over a couple times, plus we went to watch him play basketball Thursday (then watched him play again before L’s game Friday. More on hoops tomorrow.).
We had a few days of really nice weather. After we had done all our meal prep for the next morning, S and I took a long walk Christmas Eve afternoon as it was in the mid–50s and sunny. The neighborhood streets were packed with like-minded folks, all in good cheer for the big day ahead. It was pushing 60 Christmas Day until clouds and rain moved in during the afternoon. The last few days have been unceasingly dreary and much colder. There is snow in the forecast a couple times over the next week, although at this point it doesn’t look like anything major. As always in Indiana, winter is inevitable.
M will go back to Cincinnati on Saturday, weather permitting. C and L start J-term next Tuesday. We don’t have big plans while they are all still here other than a trip to Louisville Thursday for basketball.
That’s kind of a broad, generic summary of how the past ten days passed. It was almost all good, which is the most important part. I hope all of you had happy holiday celebrations and are starting 2024 healthy and at least theoretically rested and recharged.