Sunday, December 25, 2016

A Christmas Miracle...

I figured that was an apt title given the last time I posted.

It's not for lack of ideas. I have ideas all the time.  Something will happen and I start composing a post in my head.  It just never gets actually written down.  Mostly because of the whole work-life balance thing.  Which will be another post altogether.

I hope you're doing something fun for the day. Like celebrating with family, dysfunctional or not.  My family is entertainingly dysfunctional, like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates - you never know what you're gonna get. So I will be celebrating with wine.  Wine adds another level of interesting to things, don't you think?

Anyways.....

We do a family holiday card every year.  I started out including Sug the year we got her. Made her wear antlers and a Santa hat, which she handled with her usual equanimity.  Each year we did a new card, adding new equine family members as the kids grew from ponies to horses.  Past cards included Cookie, the wonderful pony we borrowed from my dearest friend, James, Tiki, Mooch, and RJ.  As the kids grew taller, so did the horses.

The year Sug passed the holiday card featured Tiki, the unicorn we were fortunate to lease, and Mooch, the first horse to have the job of babysitting me after I lost Sug.  Last year was Indy's first appearance. Mooch had left to go to another family, so we had RJ, a wonderful, gentle soul who had become mostly Noah's partner. Neither would subject themselves to the indignity of wearing holiday headgear of any kind.

This year's card has Indy, who has just celebrated a full year with us, and Mooch.  RJ sustained an injury and is now retired and living the good life in North Carolina.  In a stroke of good fortune, Mooch's family was looking for a new home for him so we bought him and he's been with us since June.

Yeah, there's a lot to catch you guys up on.

So here's this year's holiday card, and a few pics from our photo shoot (which is a fancy term for freezing your a$$ off while some poor soul from the barn you've coerced into becoming a photographer takes a few pictures.)








Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, and just general wishes of good times and happiness to you!