December 14, 2017: A Carriage Ride Through Highland Park
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Our Christmas this year followed the traditional pattern. First, a week or so before Christmas, Fred and the cats and I set up the small Christmas tree on top of the coffee table in the living room, and get the presents laid out under it.

No, That's Not a Present

Those Are the Presents

Fred spends the 23rd and 24th at his mother's house, and then he goes to his step-brother's house for Christmas Eve, returning to my house late that evening. In the morning, I get the turkey ready and into the oven, and then we do our gift thing, but not without first taking a couple of pictures in front of the pristine tree:

Fred's Portrait Picture   My Portrait Selfie

Then Fred and I open gifts which, at our ages and with all that we already have, tend to the practical and small- such as the new polo shirt that Fred got me.

Fred Gets a Buffalo Mug from St. Louis

The cats like to participate in the opening ceremony, not just because they usually get a gift as well, but because every box and every piece of wrapping turns into a cat toy. Here are the other pictures we took while we were opening gifts:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

For the rest of the day, I am checking periodically on how dinner is coming, and at about 5PM our guests- Greg, his friend Stephen, Brad, Justin, and Gary arrived for dinner. Fred took a couple of candid shots before supper:

Our Guests Before Supper

Greg and Stephen

And of course, here I am with the Guest of Honor:

That's Me on the Left

We all had a really great Christmas Dinner, with the turkey and all the fixings- including some dishes that Justin and Gary brought with them.

The Christmas holiday brought this year to an end, and with it the photo album pages for this year. The next day, we took down the tree and packed it away and Fred went home for a few days before we left for Florida on the 28th. But the pictures from that trip will be on the first of next year's pages.

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

	December 14, 2017: A Carriage Ride Through Highland Park
	Return to the Index for 2017