Christmas

Started off Christmas week sick, not improved by lack of sleep and the different air pressure and humidity in the mountains. Took an antibiotic, had side effects, still no sleep, but drove home safely anyway on Sunday.
Highlight of the trip was lunch at my sister's house, with a crown roast, dressing, scalloped potatoes, something sweet with tomatoes that I'll have to get the recipe for, cranberry salad, sherry cake, and a couple other things I didn't get to. Elizabeth and David outdid themselves.
Well, possibly the highlight of the trip was arriving at Mom and Dad's place after a six hour drive, to find Mom's butterscotch pie waiting for me. Contrary to the scurrilous allegations of my offspring, I did not have five pieces of that pie...unfortunately.
One of the gifts looked, when I first opened the package, like black leather, and I thought "I'm sure Diana didn't actually get...but if she did, I'm going to have an interesting time explaining this...." Nothing too exotic, though, as it turned out to be a black oilcloth duster coat. And as I was trying it on, Dad said "Josh, your uncle James brought a coat like that back from Montana, and he left it here when he got married. I think it's downstairs, go and check." Sure enough, Josh came back up the stairs with a nearly identical coat. He put it on, added sunglasses, and we looked as if we were Matrix fans.