The family that laughs together avoids ulcers together

Halfway through every December, Joo and I celebrate her/our paeksaengchrist which is a combo celebration of her birthday, Christmas, and the anniversary of our first 100-day mark. This time around, I decorated our apartment in lights while she was sleeping and made a delicious batch of cinnamon rolls...

Unfortunately, I was caught up in the preparations too much to figure out that saran wrap does not serve well as a cover in the oven. The rolls were moist all right... moist with melted plastic. I painfully discarded them and luckily was able to get a second and somewhat less toxic batch done before she got up.

A few days later, we headed to Virginia for our first Christmas at Heather's new home. She was a wonderful hostess, having arranged everything down to a tee. Or a tea rather, as hot drinks were included in her readiness.

After a day at Heather's, we drove over to Harrisonburg for the yearly Showalter Christmas. Mom and Dad were in charge of the planning and had run into substantial obstacles with reserving a location for all of us (60 this year) and so it was a relief that it went so smoothly... Grandma had pulled through a semi-lengthy hospital visit but was in great spirits for the gathering. Luckily she was able to take off work for the reunion (despite her 90+ years, last Christmas she had accidentally scheduled herself to work in the VMRC store during our family gathering!) Here she is with the growing group of great-grandchildren...


I had fun composing a quartet with some of my cousins...

After a day of many hellos and goodbyes, we returned to Heather's for another day of family time. Actually, we also had a reunion with my good friend Pete Allen who I hadn't seen for about 7 years-

I think there was more laughter during this family Christmas than any time I can remember (out of all the times our family has been together) which was beautiful... we all came away with sore stomachs and smiling hearts. Oh, and smooth feet (after Heather taught us how to massage the popcorn crinkles out).