Merry Christmas

It is a rainy Christmas morning. But, the fire's going and its warm inside. Christmas music is going. The kids have opened their gifts. Our five year old is playing with her Polly Pockets. Our eleven year old is already on the phone to a friend ("hey dude"). We've had our morning coffee and gingerbread cake is underway with fresh brown eggs. We've read the Christmas story with all the readers in the house taking different paragraphs. We watched Linus tell Charlie Brown the meaning of Christmas and read the Grinch for the umpteenth time with such gusto I'm surprised the neighbors didn't complain about the "noise, noise noise, noise." There's nothing like Christmas morning.


Normally we would load the car down with gifts and head over to my folks' house where bedlam typically reigns with kids running all around. But, my mom is recovering this year from a tough surgery and the family gathering will need to wait. I'll head over this afternoon, but for the rest of the family, a merry Christmas phone call will have to suffice for today.


Every year, we enjoy our area's Christmas displays. We do Christmas Tree Lane in Altadena (with our car lights off). We take multiple trips to Hastings Ranch and the Balian house. It is amazing they've been doing the lights in Hastings Ranch since 1957!

I made several runs at passable pictures of Christmas lights. Believe it or not, I took pictures of lots of great stuff. Just none of it came out. Anyway, the top picture is from a lawn display in Hastings. The manger scene below is one of the many scenes at the Balian house.