{"id":1260,"date":"2016-01-05T19:27:24","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T19:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/?p=1260"},"modified":"2016-01-05T19:28:45","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T19:28:45","slug":"a-christmas-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kmccullough.com\/kblog\/a-christmas-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"A Christmas Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

I haven\u2019t been very good about blogging regularly here this year, but one of my goals for 2016 (more on that in a later post) is to post at least once a week, on any topic that happens to engage me.<\/p>\n

To start off, though, I need to do a Christmas recap.\u00a0 It was a relatively quiet Christmas this year, compared to some years when we\u2019ve had a lot of family visiting. That\u2019s not necessarily a bad thing, just different.<\/p>\n

The season still held some wonderful things that provided treasured memories.<\/p>\n

Although the out-of-town parts of the family weren\u2019t able to be here this year, I\u2019m fortunate that my oldest daughter still lives nearby.\u00a0 Her oldest daughter is away at college, but her son lives with them. And he likes to bake and cook.\u00a0 Early in December the three of us got together on a Sunday afternoon for a cookie baking marathon. With football games in the background, we mixed, rolled, stirred, decorated and baked for three hours, and emerged with ten or so bags worth of cookies that we split.<\/p>\n

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Bags and bags of cookies!<\/p><\/div>\n

A small gathering with my local Sisters in Crime chapter provided a lovely buffet lunch and a chance to talk about moving forward without our co-presidents, Jim and Joyce Lavene, following Joyce\u2019s untimely death last fall.<\/p>\n

My neighborhood does something unique and magical to celebrate Christmas.\u00a0 This year, The Today Show came down and filmed some of it.\u00a0 The tree balls are notoriously difficult to photograph, but the video helps.<\/p>\n