Christmas Eve Eve 2005.

Earl and I are safely in suburban Philadelphia visiting his family for the holidays. We’ll be here until tomorrow night, when we leave around 8:00 p.m. or so to make the five hour trek home. We have a rule in our merry little family, and that’s that we wake up in our own bed on Christmas morning. We’ve adhered to this rule since our commitment ceremony back in 1996. It’s nice to have a constant in the chaos of the holiday season.

We just got back from a great dinner at a place called “The Churchville Inn” in Churchville, Pa. Fabulous place! A couple of beers, some nachos and some bbq pork and we’re good to go!

Now Rick and Helen (Earl’s stepbrother and his girlfriend) are decorating their Christmas tree with Earl and I, along with their cat Jones and dog Seamus, as an audience. It’s good fun. They have a real tree that will be planted in the spring. If we had a real tree, we’d do the same. The score from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is playing in the CD player, the mood of the room is festive.

Now that the shopping is done and work has been set aside until the 27th, we can actually sit down and enjoy the holidays.

It’s a nice change of pace.