Today was a wonderfully slow and peaceful day…   We managed to sleep until around 8 when Chai the alarm dog jumped up into bed with us. She’s not ‘sposed to do that.. but .. hey.. this is christmas !

The boys wondered in a little later on.. this is a far cry from the 5:30 or 6AM Christmas mornings of years past. The easy and low key beginning signaled the tone of the rest of the day… 

Diane and I wandered downstairs to find out that Chai had already identified her stocking and had proceeded to pull out her toys..

The guys came down a few minutes later.. we’ve always had the ttradition of video taping them coming down the stairs.That was a hard moment for me…  It was cool to see them bringing one of the Sam lamps down with them.

First things first.. we went for the stockings..    Sam’s is there in the middle.. as is our bird Gabby who passed on more than 2 years ago..  Hey live on with us too…   Gabby’s stocking had a wad of Suet for the birds outside.. Sam’s was filled with the glass SamStones that I made with Chris and cards for the two donations we made in Sam’s honor. One was a years training of a Mayan midwife in rural Mexico we made through the Seva Foundation (www.seva.org) .. And the other was a donation of three goats to a rural family which we made through the Heifer International (www.heifer.org). Both of these charities support sustainable communities in the emerging world. 

From there we launched into opening presents… including this stylish foot ware being modeled by the boys..

Here we are at the other end of the process.. It was a very nice morning.. I really liked that Diane got me gun powder and a welding torch.. Did I marry the right girl or what ?!  (ok.. so I chose them.. but still… )

Around 11is we had breakfast.. our holiday tradition of crepes and smoked salmon . We kept one of Sam’s lanterns burning throughout the day (it’s still burning.. I note at 9PM) .

The rest of the afternoon was amazingly quiet.. the boys got immersed in a new video game..

Diane went out for a snowshoe with Chai and I fell asleep for a couple of hours.. My fever seemed to break and I woke up feeling pretty good. I managed to get a few hours of welding in on the rail I’m building for Gabe.

Around 6 it was time to eat again…. 

Now we’re all about to settle in for a movie..’The Hebrew Hammer’ ..that Max got for me.  a Saturday night live spoof on a Jewish action hero.. yeah.. right.. .. The quiet end of a quiet day..

So much has changed with our family.. yet.. we are still so lucky.. We have so much love between us..

Merry Christmas everyone.. Merry Christmas Sam.. we love you very much
-me