A Winter Wonderland

What can you say about the holidays that hasn’t already been said? Family, food, fun, red and green, cold and snow, (hopefully!) Things you wouldn’t do at any other time of the year… my niece and nephew and I made Christmas cookies…

This month my outside activities were about as amazing and fun as it can get. I went to visit my family for Christmas in Chicago. I traveled with my brother and his kids and we stayed at my other brother’s house. He and his wife were very gracious and they made it snow for us on the third day!

Our typical family thing is to get together and eat. I mean, what else is there to do at Christmas time?

We also have a book exchange and I’m so proud of my family that we do this… we’re all readers and there’s too many of us to do a gift exchange so we bring our favorite books and share them with everyone.

My sister and I planned to meet in Madison Wi. for an extra day and we agonized over activities that would satisfy everyone. We were blessed with several heavy snowstorms so we did what anybody would have done…we went sledding! Being 50+ years old with bad knees didn’t stop me…being from Florida with lightweight Florida clothing didn’t stop me…nothing stopped me but fatigue. What great fun!

We watched a movie, ate at a really GREAT Mexican food place called La Meztica and drove around in the snow. On the way back to my brother’s house, it continued to snow. I didn’t want to lose the feeling of the inner reflection caused by the stark landscape. There’s something about a gray day that makes me feel all closed in. We don’t get that sort of thing in Florida.

Our time in Madison was over too soon and the drive back to Illinois was quiet and reflective. The men listened to the Bears game and I watched the snow go by… a rare treat that often brings on melancholy. We ended up at my brothers house by late afternoon.

The snow continued through the night and my brother made plans with his guy to have the driveway shoveled, a job that costs him $50! (Hey…let me do it…I’ll take your money!) I truly wanted to shovel…it’s always been one of my favorite winter activities…I get the same satisfaction from it as I do when I sweep the floor. You KNOW what you’ve accomplished when you’re done…and you can see how well you did it…I know; it’s weird. Anyway, I went out with a shovel and it took only ten minutes for my brothers to come out and grab their own shovels. That was so predictable…no one could watch through the window at someone having as much fun as I was and not get involved. What my brother said would take more than an hour was done in 30 minutes with all of us working. Nobody got any money.

My goofball nephew loves the camera and orange juice from Florida:

He put on those goggles because we had another sledding trip planned…he thought it was cool…little did he know my brother is a bit of a trickster…

That night was New Year’s Eve, a time for strange people to do strange things. Talk about doing things you wouldn’t normally do…too many people, too much booze, too late at night…not my thing. My brothers went to Chicago’s Navy Pier and watched fireworks in the snow?! How odd! They have some good stories to tell but they have to get their own blogs for that.

It was a really great time in Chicago and I’m so happy to be with my family…it’s hard to come home. I took some other photos of some important people and events: