Christmas Day plus one....

We drove to Houston yesterday to have Christmas dinner with our friends K & B. Even though we both love our own Christmas in our own home, it was nice to be a guest. K's table was set with vintage green glassware, vintage English china, and the most vintage salt-cellars, complete with with the delicate glass salt-spoons. I never sprinkle salt on my food, but just having that tiny green glass salt-cellar and spoon was a special treat. A salt-set was at each place setting, and I looked at it all through dinner and just enjoyed having it there. During the dinner, each of us picked up those tiny spoons and just turned it around in our fingers. They are truly vintage... at least 85 years old, probably more.

After breakfast yesterday, my husband and I opened gifts from "the NY cousins," as he calls them...... and then we opened gifts from each other when we got back from Houston. Little gifts for each of us..... we have this big old house, we are in good health, life is certainly good. What more do we need? Between the Treasure Boxes on Christmas Eve, and opening gifts on Christmas morning and then again Christmas night, the holiday seemed to not go by so quickly.

And the best gift of Christmas was just sent to me in an eMail........ my friend F in NY is going to be a grandmother in the summer. Her son J and his wife M are expecting their first child. I know that F is just beside herself and spinning with happiness for her first-born son and his wife. I held both of F's sons within hours of their births. So many years ago when her boys were born, I was hoping to have a baby of my own, but it just never happened. As the years went by, it was heart-warming to watch F's sons growing up, and I loved how they were such a great family. The best part-- they still are!

Those little boys are men now, but I still remember them both as tiny babies in my arms. And now J will soon have a tiny baby of his own. What a great Christmas gift. A Christmas surprise.

Tiny babies.... they bring with them such promise.... so much joy.... and boundless hope.