December 31, 2007: New Year's Eve at Ron's House
	December 11-19, 2007: Our Trip to Fort Lauderdale
	Return to Index for 2007

Well, another Christmas has rolled around- my 62nd. And, like almost all of them since I moved to Texas, it is being spent with close friends. Fred returned from Fort Worth and his mother's last night, and I'm using his help today to get everything set up. We're going to have our friend Lou and our friends Mario and Steve over. Greg will drop by sometime during the day, but he's already made plans elsewhere.

My day began early when I got up to get the pineapple slices stuck to the ham and got it into the oven. By the time guests arrived just after noon, the ham was looking good. Everybody contributed something. Mario and Steve brought a casserole and Lou brought some potatoes and a dessert. Fred cooked two desserts. I did the ham and gravy. And, in a burst of culinary ingenuity, Fred baked bread from scratch.

We had plenty of time to stand around and enjoy each other's company in the kitchen while the food finished cooking. Fred got a good picture of Steve, Mario Lou and myself standing near the kitchen while we were waiting; you can see that picture here. Greg arrived before we sat down to dinner, and so Fred took the opportunity to take a group picture of the six of us.

Shortly after Greg left, dinner was ready, and we sat down to eat, with Fred acting once again as photographer to capture everyone at dinner. Between dinner and dessert we performed the ritual opening of gifts, and I think that everyone was pleased with what they received. I know I was, since I had emailed my sister, niece and nephew regarding which of the AFI top 100 films I still lacked for my collection.

The dessert buffet came next. Lou contributed the Christmas Log Cake and Fred made a "dump cake" and brought a pecan pie from his Mom's. Mario's sister, Marta, was arriving in Dallas at 7pm, so I accompanied him out to DFW to pick her up, while everyone else just relaxed at home. We got back in plenty of time to allow Marta to have some dinner herself and also to spend some time letting us get to know her. Here are Mario and Marta shortly after returning to my house.

One other thing worked out quite well. We knew Marta would be coming over, and didn't want her to be without at least a small gift; Mario provided a perfect solution when he mentioned early in the day that John Denver was Marta's favorite musical artist. I just happen to have almost every song John Denver ever recorded in my collection, so I spent some time in the afternoon burning CDs of those songs for Marta. I ended up with twelve CDs with about 25 songs each- a complete collection. She was very appreciative, and Mario has told me a number of times how much she tells him she likes her collection. It was easy to do and I was happy to do it.

On all fronts, Christmas was another success this year.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	December 31, 2007: New Year's Eve at Ron's House
	December 11-19, 2007: Our Trip to Fort Lauderdale
	Return to Index for 2007