Christmas - Page 1

I'm home, I'm tired and I'm happy that we had a very nice Christmas, plenty of family, lots of fun with all of the kids and now, time to relax.  We did get some horrible news two days before Christmas, my cousin's son, 24 years old, didn't show up for work on Tuesday morning.  They went to his home and found him unresponsive, took him to the hospital and he died from an aneurysm.  He was engage, planning a May wedding.  Really nice kid, terribly sad, a family torn apart by grief.  But after getting that kind of news, you squeeze the babies a bit harder, play with them a little longer, hug and kiss your parents a bit more and just appreciate everybody that's with you.

Hope you all had a very nice holiday with loved ones, that's what counts most.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Glad you had a great Christmas and sorry to hear about your 2nd cousin. RIP.

We had my son and his wife over for dinner and presents, along with her sister and daughter and of course the 2 grandkids. My oldest grandson wasn't here this year because it was his moms year. We missed him a lot, especially my wife, we mailed his presents a little early so he could play with them over his Christmas break. Had a good time and took a bunch of pics of the little ones opening presents and playing. Just watching them playing was enough to get my tired so like you I am relaxing. I have the next 10 days off of work and planning on getting in some much needed relaxation.

i hung out in a swamp with my dogs all day & night, lots of sand flies but still.

Now somehow that sounds far more interesting than the usual Xmas

image  of Australians on a beach with a turkey under a sunshade. 

Travels, sorry for your loss.  Its always harder when someone dies around

a public holiday or other special day.

Well, we didn't live close to each other and I only met the son at family events, so he wasn't a "close" family member, but I grew up with his father and we were close as kids.  So this won't leave a hole in my everyday life, but when I have been in his presence, he was always polite, sweet and much like his Dad.  His would-have-been-grandmother died from colon cancer and was buried on her 52nd birthday, when her oldest son's wife was pregnant with her first grandchild.  She was a wonderful, kind and very loving mother and it always broke my heart that she never got to know a grandchild, she would've been the best Grandma in the world.  I feel for my cousin, he loved his son and they were very close, my heart breaks for him.

On top of that all, his surviving sister and only sibling started out her life in trauma.  When she was almost 3 years old, her maternal grandmother was babysitting and had a massive heart attack that killed her instantly.  Her baby brother was napping, there was a wall phone that she couldn't reach and when her mother was calling and couldn't get an answer, she had the police get to the house while she was on her way.  She had stayed with her grandmother and was trying to "wake" her for over an hour.  They've endured a lot of loss in their immediate family and it's just heartbreaking that they lost their son 2 days before Chistmas, on top of everything else.

Thank you for your symathies.