Merry Christmas to those who celebrate with warm wishes to those who don’t and to those who may celebrate another holiday this time of year.

Comfortably ensconced in this Henderson, Nevada home, from which we’ll leave in 48 hours to head back to Scottsdale for our final four days of organizing and packing. 

The five-hour drive awaits us as a time to unwind after the busy but enjoyable eight days of precious time spent with family reminiscing about the past and dreaming about the future.  It’s all so clear to me now.  More than ever.

The preparations for Tom’s birthday party on the 23rd, again last night, Christmas Eve, and today, Christmas Day flowed with ease for me.  I over-bought food, more than we could possibly need, throwing my cooperative house guests into an eating frenzy when they say so much less would have been fine. I agree.

Never in my past have I ever over-bought food as I have done this time. Perhaps knowing this was my last cooking “hurrah” for what may prove to be years to come, my association of “food is love” was definitely overdone. 

I couldn’t get enough, the preparation or the love, the laughter, the memories, the photos or the stories, old and new, or the sound of Tom’s laughter in the background. 

Saying goodbye.  For us now, it was all about saying goodbye.  A repeat of the sorrowful goodbyes in Minnesota.  As I have written in the past, our choice to embark on an amazing journey doesn’t make us exempt from feeling sad about leaving everyone behind.  It’s now becoming more real as we’re only 9 days away from leaving the US.

Today, Christmas Day is yet another family-filled day, the third in a row with too much good food, an abundance of stories we’ve all heard before, laughter filling the air, and love all around. Sound familiar? Ah, the human spirit gathers to celebrate this joyous time of the year.

Merry Christmas to all of our readers, the people we know, and the people we don’t know, and to the people all over the world as I see in the stats are somehow finding this blog reading it regularly. We’ll see you soon.