Sunday, Dec. 26

Up at 6 a.m., and skipped my exercises again, so we could get everything ready for company. We finished preparations around 10 a.m., and the first group arrived at 11:30. The rest (who traveled five hours) were here around 1 p.m.

Eighteen of us sat down to three tables for a soup and sandwich lunch. There were so many choices of cookies and candies that no one even touched the cobbler or cherry pie I made yesterday.

The 11-bean with Rotel soup, potato soup, and salmon chowder were the most popular. Not many sampled the veggie soup, but that's fine, because we'll enjoy having it this week. The sliced roast beef was the popular choice over the ham and deli turkey.

After lunch, we exchanged gifts. For my birthday, one of Hubbie's daughters gave me a beautiful rust colored Pashima shawl. These shawls are made from the wool of Pashima goats indigenous to the Himalayas in Pakistan, and northern India. I also got two beautiful necklaces, one in glittery rust color, and one in orange.

The other daughter gave me a gorgeous silver Christmas tree ornament...a series of hearts with the words Faith, Love, Hope on one side, and the corresponding Bible verses on the reverse sides of the hearts. She also gave me a tube of hand cream and three tubes of lipstick in my color (discontinued lines from beauty supplies that she sells). She gave Mother hand cream and gray color eyebrow pencils.

Hubbie got a gift card to a favorite store and a cute planter with a shih tzu dog on the front that looks just like our little dog.

Family began leaving around 3 p.m., but Hubbie's younger daughter stayed until around 5 p.m. and worked on a jigsaw puzzle with Mother while we chatted. A young grandson and a great-grandson stayed behind, too.

After everyone left, I walked Mother to her house, and then Hubbie and I settled in front of TV for the evening. It was an enjoyable, but tiring day.

Tonight, we watched the 2010, R-rated movie, "The Killer Inside Me," starring Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, and Simon Baker. A sheriff is a murderer. The women he kills are drawn to him like a magnet, even as he is brutally killng them.

Then we watched the 2008, R-rated movie, "The Narrows," starring Keven Zegers, and Vincent D'Onofrio. In order to earn money to go to a prestigious Manhattan university, he takes a job with a mob boss, but gradually gets in deeper and deeper.

Tomorrow, we're scheduled to travel an hour and a half east to visit the same family members that were here today, for a "cousins Christmas gathering" at their church, where we'll eat and play games. There, we'll see nieces and nephews and assorted grand-nieces and nephews that weren't here today.

Hopefully, this is the last big event of the season, because we're beginning to run out of steam. We need a few days to relax and recoup. Apparently, so do a lot of other folks, because there were a few cranky people here today, including a couple of kids who were out of sorts over the fact they had to be here, instead of at home playing with their new toys, and a daughter, who was ill with her husband for not accompanying her.

Frankly, I think the "cousins Christmas gathering" is one too many gatherings. It was started last year as a way to get cousins together who lived a distance away, but those folks won't be attending this year. A thing like this tends to snowball into an annual event that becomes a burden not only to the hostess (Hubbie's daughter) who originated it, but to everyone else.