The Clan

Each year, my family gathers after Christmas to celebrate the holidays together. We take turns hosting the event between my two sisters, my mom and myself. This year was Mom's turn, but she's 83 and not able to very much any more, so I pretty much took over the organization.

We arranged to hold the event in one of the large party rooms at Mom's retirement village. We all bring pot-luck dinner. The village provides the dishes and even washes them afterwards for us - which is a bonus! Our family has grown over the years with the addition of more Great - Grandchildren for Mom and various boyfriends/girlfriends and fiance[e]s. The farthest anyone has to travel is 5 hours, but sometimes some of us just can't make it. This year we were missing 4 people. So our total count for this year's celebration was 19.

We played games, had a gift auction with play money and White Elephant wrapped gifts from home! We laughed, we cried, we ate, we drank and we reminisced.

I took over 100 photos, all on P mode and I only had to delete 5 or 6! Not too bad! Here's a few of my favourites! There weren't very many appropriate places for me to take a family photo, so this had to do. I wish I could have turned down the overhead lights.