Merry Christmas To All... And To All, A Good Night (Already!) :)

This year we were invited to a close friend of mine's house to celebrate Christmas Eve. I've been anticipating it all week. :) After a rather tedious candlelight service at church, my family and some other good friends all headed over to the P's house for some fun!

(Okay, little humorous sidenote here: right before the service started, I was sitting in the pew in front of a guyfriend who had also been invited to the party. He leaned over to look at my program, saw the size of it - over twenty things!!! - and said, essentially, "Holy cow! This is going to take forever!" "I know," I commiserated. "And we've got a PARTY to get to! What were they thinking?!?" "Well," he reflected, "I guess if you don't get invited to parties, you're not in any rush to get home." :))

I. Had. A. Blast. This is seriously the most fun I've had in a long time! All my favorite people were there in one place, the food was INCREDIBLE (I had some Hungarian Goulash that transported me right back to being small and eating stuffed peppers in my grandfather's kitchen - so good!), everyone was fun to talk to. But I did remember to take a break from all the fun and catch some of these memories on film.
My mentor Mrs. P, myself, and Ms H, who has five boys who correspond in age with the five girls in our family. We grew up considering each other our "brothers" and "sisters" and they're still really special guys to me, even though the youngest is now taller than I am in my tallest high heels. :) And of course Mrs. P is my mentor and rock and the single biggest influence God has used to help straighten out my life over the last few years. :)

Me and Faith! I can never take good one-armed photos - you know, the kind where you hug someone with one arm and hold the camera with the other, and guesstimate how it's going to look when you take the picture and turn it over? I asked her to demonstrate, but having watched her do it, I think it's an innate skill. Time to get one of those cams that have dual screens.

And of course we spent plenty of time laughing! My sister Maggie, my friend and conspirator :) Hannah, sisters Lizzie and Anna and my Mom and I (taking the photo) hung out in the dining room for awhile swapping stories and laughing. This is us in one of our more sober moments. :)

Merry Christmas Eve! I hope everyone has a wonderful time celebrating with friends, family, and loved ones, and that you're as blessed as I have been this season!