Oops! I had forgotten the Ballet Pictures!!!!!

(the momma here would be Mizmollye)

FAMILY
...............FAMILY
..............................FAMILY



Spending time with family is just PRICELESS isn't it?

I've always loved Christmas. The hustle, bustle, shopping, wrapping, carols, TV specials, parties, church events, Santa pictures, lights, the tree, decorations, mailing cards, receiving cards, baking, and just everything connected with this holly jolly, and holy season.

BUT....................................................

It felt all out of place for me this year. Approaching Thanksgiving our family began discussing the holidays and what we wanted to do this year. We found that we were all on the same page. After losing our beloved son and brother, Jake just shy of 6 months ago, we were all full of so many memories and while all very sweet and loving, the pain of facing this first Christmas without him here was just overwhelmingly sad. We began knocking around ideas and were in agreement on what we wanted to do this year. And Sisters I can tell you it has so far been wonderful and oh so rewarding and blessed for us.


Shreveport Symphony warming up for the Nutcracker performance of the Metropolitan Ballet


Ma and Pa Self before the ballet


Lori and her hubby Marc


Kane, who was Shari's date for the evening! (her oldest grandson)

Buddy living in Alabama was not going to be able to be here so that left Punkin and myself and the two girls and their husbands. What if we each planned a night during the month to spend time together and planned the fun along with meal and gifts of which we had already decided would be something we already had (re-gifting).

So.....I picked the first family event and I prepared a Gumbo dinner complete with baked sweet potatoes, chicken and sausage gumbo, hot garlic bread and pecan pie. Everyone got together here early in the evening and opened their presents and ate and then we went together to the Nutcracker Ballet. The girls loved it and I was so happy to be able to take all of us as a family to one of my favorite things about Christmas.

Shari was the next to host Family night and she had all of us to her house last Saturday night for Game Night. Her home glowed from all the beautiful decorations and candles lit. She and her daughter Emily



had worked so hard to present a magical setting for our get-together. She made red beans and rice with sausage, and her special tater tot casserole. For the sweet tooth she had yellow cake with chocolate frosting which little Luke helped ice, chocolate pie and pumpkin pie. But the hands down winner of the night was the mango iced tea! She re-gifted with sentimentality and tears were shed. We played Pictionary Man and a Shout and Pass game.


WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE ABOUT CHARADES? And PD was a natural!

Lots of laughs, a few tears, many hugs, smiles and love filled the evening.



Now our next event will be this Friday night and Lori is hosting a Pizza party and comedy show with Tim Hawkins at her church. I'll take pictures and report on that after we get together.

By not shopping, we all had extra cash to do nice things for others and the girls chose the little shoe box gifts to the children in Haiti and they selected the age and sex of children they wanted to shop for and they ended up "adopting" way more than one child apiece and they were so blessed and happy with the opportunity of making children happy at Christmas. Punkin and I adopted a couple expecting their first child in January from the VOA, and it has been the most rewarding experience ever in helping make someone feel special and loved.

The girls and I are planning a surprise Donut party for the employees of all three of the Home Depot stores in our area as Jake worked at all three of the stores and many of you are aware of the magnitude of support we were given by Home Depot after Jake's death. So this is a very small way to be able to gift some smiles in an attempt to say "Thank You".

Our family has truly discovered Christmas this year and while uppermost in all our minds is the thought that Jake would have loved celebrating in this manner and "why oh why did we not do this while he was here", but we can't afford ourselves those hurtful thoughts and still know joy so we have chosen to just think that somehow we have learned to get our priorities in order as a gift to Jake.

Merry Christmas days and nights from Mizmollye and Punkin Darlin!