Home for the holidays meant home with my nephew and his family, one of two places I can name (other than my own house) where I do feel "at home."
Christmas Eve
An easy drive despite rain followed by cookie-making with my mother's cutters, gingerbread baked to a fine crisp, and the making with The Birmingham Greats better than the eating; trampoline bouncing with a 9-year-old and 7-year-old, and then with only one while her sister rests with her stubborn stomach virus; dinner at the in-laws': Camellia red beans cooked to perfection with Conecuh sausage; home again and a few photographs of the angel on the ceiling before stockings and tucking (one wearing her Santa hat) and bed.
Christmas Day
The family exchange of gifts develops slowly -- one child loves her cheese mat, the other her sewing machine; both wear their almost-UGGs; my nephew's father-in-law carefully unboxes a mountain-bike-trail tool; pinch cake and coffee followed later by cheese, salami, garlic-stuffed olives, and black pepper crackers; tumbling and bouncing with one of the Greats while the other rests her virus; a reading with each of the Greats, separately, of the 2012 Christmas book (one said, "This is my favorite one yet, Aunt Robley"); a walk between spitting rains with my nephew and Betsy, the Golden Doodle, the very model of calm canine love; my niece-in-law's divine first turkey complemented by spinach, squash casserole (a Great's favorite), offal stuffing, and finished with a stuff apple pie. To cap off the evening, the elder Great asks me to read her the first chapter of my gift -- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. She loved it and went happily to bed, as did I not much later.
On Leaving
Hugs all-round and thank-yous, and then a journey through sleet and light snow and rain and driving wind, toward my own home, where a cat waited and a dusting of snow covered the ground.
A Christmas to remember.
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