Grateful Saturday

I've many things to be grateful for today, but I thought I'd keep it focused on my Christmas trip home to New Brunswick. As I recounted my week to a colleague, he exclaimed, "It almost sounds idyllic!" In hindsight, I guess it almost was.

Here's my list:

• arriving to and from destination safe & sound
• Sis, Bro-in-Law and his mum arriving safe & sound
• witnessing a shooting star the morning of the Winter Solstice - feeling at one with All
• Mom's chocolate chip cookies, fricot (chicken & dumpling stew sans dumplings) and meat pies
• poutines râpées - a traditional Acadian Holiday treat
• Grenache caramel spread on my toasts EVERY morning
• crackling fires in the fireplace
• feeding the chickadees on my parents' deck
• communal crossword and jigsaw puzzles
• snowshoeing on Mom & Dad's 100-acre piece of land with D, and a bonus trek bushwhacking through the woods at our neighbouring National Park
• Holiday Inn, A Christmas Story, It's a Wonderful Life, The Chronicles of Narnia
• spending the week in one house with six other people, sharing meals, stories and space without cramping each other's individual style
• listening to the scratchy sounds of Gene Autry, Rosemary Clooney and Elvis Presley's Blue Christmas on Dad's record player in the basement
• sharing and laughing with D during the car ride there & back, listening to CBC Radio
• stopping one last night at Château Vaudreuil on the way back, treating ourselves to a suite with a jacuzzi after 11 hours in a car

So many things for which to be grateful - and there are even more that didn't make it here 'cause the list is already long! I am, and continue to be blessed.