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Let it Snow

The view at Christmas time from Maman's Lodge

We decided to stay in Los Altos this Christmas holiday. 

We have made plans for each day just as we would had we been on vacation, so to make sure the holidays don't pass us by in a rush of chores, emails, or too much coziness by the fire place...

Maman's Mr. & Mrs. Snow
Vacations this time of the year usually take us to Vancouver, to Maman's lodge, where we usually get snowed in.  Where every corner of the home is decorated in melt your heart decorations.  Where there are so many presents under the tree and so many stockings by the fire place in the living room that you must take refuge in the kitchen to find a place to sit.  Where I find more people I love per square inch than most anywhere else in the world...

Maman's Christmas Village

But this year we decided to stay in Los Altos.  To spend time with people we love here, to see what our home turns into the night where a big fat bearded man is supposed to squeeze in through our chimney and pass through our glassed-in fireplace with a big sack of gifts in tow, to avoid the travel rush, and the new body scanners, and the delayed flights, and the flu...

But I sure do miss home. And my mom (maman), and dad, and sister, and brother and new sister in law.  And all the pets. And the Chaos.  And worry about snow storms and black ice.  And my mom's big brunches.  And the hugs and kisses...

But then again, I always feel lucky when I know I have people in my life that I adore so, that I miss them...  there is blessing in the missing.

Oh you know how the story goes... man invented the wheel and got the freedom to move around... and then he had to learn to endure missing all the people he loved here and there...
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