Last Saturday we celebrated Christmas with Terra and Lares, and Luna, Janus, Imp, Elf, Benny and Bim. With Mist, Attila and I it made eleven souls beneath our roof, a full house!

How wonderful it was, to have them all here looking happy and healthy.

We shared a delicious turkey dinner prepared by Attila. This year, for the first time, as far as I can remember, I did not bake pies. We had pecan and mincemeat tarts from the bakery, but it wasn't the same. Next year I will bake early in the week they are to come (or we are to go!), so that the pies will be ready. This year, with both Attila and I working long hours, I didn't get beyond the cleaning to the baking.

Around the table we sat, with Elf presiding over all, propped up in an easy chair to view the proceedings. Imp slept in my arms and captured my attention throughout. These babies are such a wonderful addition to our family! How lucky these babies are to have such parents as Luna and Janus!

Luna and Terra have always had a magical way with children. They were both in constant demand as babysitters. Both the children they baby-sat and the parents who entrusted their children to their care held them in high esteem.

Attila and I will celebrate Christmas Day quietly together, just as we have every year since the children have grown and flown. Some years this has been difficult, but most years it is very pleasant. We have two Christmases, one with the girls et al, before Christmas Day, and another on Christmas Day exchanging greetings and good wishes via telephone, with family and friends throughout the day.

The year 2006 saw our first grandchildren into the world. The year 2007 will see our youngest daughter married. We have much to celebrate, so very much.

On another note, this season we have had two episodes of heavy snow. The first fell early in November, the second early in December. The first melted away within days, the second melted away within the week. And so here we are, with little snow. Very unlike last winter, when it seemed it to snow every day and forever. The absence of snow last weekend meant that the roads were clear for our Christmas visitors, and that is a blessing.

As expected, our metal roof shed the snow effectively. The second snowfall was heavy and melted over several days so that there was ice at the edge of the roof and a backup of snow-melt behind the ice. Ice dams formed, but with the new metal roof there was no danger of water leaking up and under the shingles, and into the house. One challenge does present itself though, the built up ice will suddenly loose itself in large chunks from the roof, and fall two stories to the ground. We must be extremely diligent that no one walks below the eves during the winter months. Since there are no pathways beneath the eves, this should not prove too difficult a task. We can pile the snow high where one should not walk.

For the first time in decades I have paid vacation time. Attila and I spent a week in September, visiting our newborn grandchildren, waiting with Terra for news of Imp’s heart surgery and touring my ancestral grounds. Attila took an unpaid leave of absence to accompany me on this vacation; we decided the loss of income for a long awaited vacation was money well spent.

But, I am permitted two weeks paid vacation. Unprecedented! I found myself at the end of the year with a ‘use em or lose em” dilemma. I took my vacation time this week, the week before Christmas.

My vacation began with a flurry of activity as our girls came to share an early Christmas with us. It continues as I clean and sort and plot and plan our domestic space. Yesterday Attila returned to work and my day was spent washing up the last of the holiday dishes.

Today has been spent baking date loaf, cleaning the kitchen, and surfing the net in search of folding high chairs. In six months time we will need chairs for the grand-babies! Our small space will not easily accommodate large baby furniture such as high chairs. The ones that Luna and Janus have are hardly suitable for travel. I have found many expensive solutions, folding high chairs and booster seats. I hope to find something more in line with our budget, and am on the lookout for plans, to build our own folding high chairs or booster seats. Probably no such thing exists, but if it does I hope to find it.

The sun is shining intermittently; blue sky is visible for the first time in weeks. At least it seems like weeks, of this I cannot be sure, usually during the daylight hours I am at work staring at a computer screen. Mist and I have the place to ourselves. She is curled up on my bed. I am puttering in the kitchen, typing this entry and waiting for the timer to ding so that I can remove my baking from the oven and place it on a cooling rack.

Later on this afternoon I think I’ll sit in my easy chair, and allow myself to doze as the rest of the world passes me by. There's no place like home.