The After Christmas meltdown

  Christmas is over, thank GOD!  Am I the only one who gets depressed afterward?   It's like this enormous build up since September where you are bombarded with sales, songs, decorations, TV specials, etc!! Then in one day it's gone.  It's like that old Peggy Lee song, "Is that all there is?". For all the thought, work, heartache, stress, it should last 8 days like Hanukkah!  At least!

Since there was dissension in the family this year I hosted the family party at my house.  Again- work, stress, planning, etc.  I am getting too old for this and it's about time to pass the baton to the kids!  So this year was maybe my last big party.

And I tried to make it nice for everyone.  I bought WAY too much food and there is a ton of it back in the freezer! There are only two big eaters who came, my brother Tommy and my son-in-law Kevin, the rest of us eat like birds.  And we were constantly entertained by the two invited dogs, Tara's dog Missy and Ruth's dog Gina.  The got along great, then marked their territory and read each other's "pee mail".

Greetings doggie style

Our big gifts to the girls was a formal dress for special occasions and matching bracelet for Bri and and a very unique gift for Kaity. There is something I found in a catalog that due to a Scottish law a person can buy a tiny piece of land in Scotland can refer to themselves as Lord or Lady.  Don't think it is really true but seemed like a real cute idea.   So now Kaity owns a piece of Dunan Castle in Scotland and can now be known as Lady Kaity. It seemed like a perfect gift for a girl who is so into being a princess we sometimes wonder if she was one in a past life!

Bri in her new formal dress

Here is Lady Kaity

So that all happened on the 24th. The 23rd was Jim and my 21st wedding anniversary.  We celebrated at an upscale Italian restaurant.  We could not find a French restaurant at all and when we put in upscale restaurants in Brooksville Florida it brought up places like Pizza hut! Yeah no.  So we ended up at Bella Napoli which was very nice, great food and atmosphere and fantastic service! It reminded me of the fine Italian restaurants in the Federal Hill section of Providence, RI like Camille's Roman Garden or the Blue Grotto.  Afterward I picked out a movie I thought we would both enjoy "Why Him" which turns out I loved and he liked.  It was a little out of his comfort zone with some literal bathroom humor but still SOOO funny and Jim did laugh at some parts.

At Bella Napoli

Christmas Day we celebrated by ourselves. We don't buy each other much in fact Jim hates getting gifts.  He is full blooded Greek and they don't much care about Christmas, Easter is their major holiday. I'll never forget my first family Christmas with him when people got yelled at for buying him things!  Awkward.  So we "go easy" on him every Christmas and we just buy each other small token gifts or a big gift for the house.

While we sincerely hope everyone had a peaceful and very happy holiday we are saddened to learn of people who have passed this time of year like Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds and George Michael. It is always hard to lose a loved one but Christmas time seems to make the heart ache worse. And we are very sorry for their family's loss.