It’s over. There was way too much food, and because of that, it is hard to decide what exactly it is that I wanted with my turkey. So, I ate two vegetables, stuffing, and a piece of turkey. I sat in the living room at the card table away from the noise of the dining room. My niece-in-law, her mother, and my brother-in-law’s cousin joined me. It was nice, not loud, not hoggish, like at the dinning room table.

My daughter was there, she was not high, she was not coming down, she was being good. My grandson cried when he saw me holding the new baby. It seems we have a new baby every year. Last year, it was my grandson. This bundle isn’t even two weeks old, she is a girl with bright red hair, just like her two other sisters, like her grandfather on our side. It was a nice day, the little ones played on the trampoline.

I noticed that one of my great nieces is hitting puberty, I can’t believe how fast time passes. Her mother announced that she is getting braces for her ugly bucked teeth. I say she doesn’t have ugly or bucked teeth, she has big beautiful teeth, and when the child went outside to turn back flips, I fussed at her mother for saying such awful things. Reminded her how important a positive self image is and how if your own mother thinks you are ugly, well, you must be ugly.

I played a game with the children, Bingo. I didn’t win one time. The children felt sorry for me and they let me pick a prize from the prize bag, I got a pencil with a fuzzy top. Yeah!

We left before four, longer than I planned, but still out of there in plenty of time to have my sanity.

Next year, I am not going. I am going to make a small bird, fix two vegetables, and dressing, and one pie, and one kind of bread. None of this counters full, and tables full. I don’t know why we do that.

I told my sister that I wasn’t coming down for Christmas. I told her that Mr. Zelda and I decided that we were going to rent movies, have the grandsons over, and watch for Santa.
She reminded me that we have always spent Christmas Eve together. I told her that I know, but our families are way too big to combine them and our gifts. She hugged me and said that it was hard getting old. I told her it had nothing to do with getting old, that we both have such big families and it is so hard to do an inside get together. I promised her we would have one really big cookout during the summer and make up for the missed Christmas.

So, we came back to the mountain. We left the noisy house where car racing, football, and who is doing what in Sunday School were some of the topics, and we talked about the three transcendentalists. We also compared Poe to King, although that is really not possible, I mean Poe, come on. Poe, Edgar A. no way. It was nice. REal nice. I'm glad my husband reads, I'm glad he knows a little, and I'm glad we don't watch sports.