I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!  Our family did.  This was our first Christmas staying home in the D.C. area.  I usually take some vacation time and we travel back to Texas for Christmas.  This year we took a two week vacation back to Texas in October.  We celebrated with our families then, especially with the big family meals.  It was still sad to not be with family over Christmas, but we did get to talk with family by phone and we have some activities planned here to make our Christmas special.  Last night we went driving around looking at Christmas lights.  We plan to go into D.C. and see the National Christmas Tree and all the other holiday decorations.  We’ll also make some other trips around the area while Annie is out on Winter Break from school.  The only thing that would have made things better yesterday was if we had had snow.  I hope your family has a great holiday season!