Weekend Plus

I sit here Sunday night thinking back on a great weekend, plus.  I’ve already written about Thanksgiving but Friday night was every bit as enjoyable as we journeyed down to Rhode Island to join my sister and her great in laws for what has become a very entertaining tradition.  Since my sister is a nurse she usually has to work on Thanksgiving and we started having a second Thanksgiving dinner at her place.  The best part though is later in the evening when her in laws, a very close knit family, join us for an evening of companionship.  We were joined this year by my best friend, my son and her girlfriend.  The night lived up to its reputation which is hard to do.  I love the opportunity to sit around a table with good people and just share stories and enjoy being with each other.  Luckily, I married my designated driver and she got us home safe.  Yesterday our companions sadly departed and my wife and I set out to buy a Christmas tree.  We have a large cathedral ceiling in the family room and we bought our usual very tall tree.  Since it was an uncommonly warm day my wife decided we should play musical plants in the yard before we put up the tree.  She thought some plants were too tall for their location in her gardens and so I was charged with digging them up and replanting them in new locations.  This encompassed removing a fairly large area of turf which was mildly back breaking.  Once the plants were relocated it was on to the tree which was a true adventure, they always look smaller outside.  Today was spent recovering from the parties and the forced labor, I’ve found I cannot do as much physically as I used to.  The NFL came to the rescue and I enjoyed watching the Patriots dominate.  When you look so forward to a weekend it sometimes falls short but that didn’t happen this time.  I really missed having my daughter around but my son made up for that to a great degree.  He’s turned into a fine young man and just having him around lifts my spirits.  He is so far ahead of where I was at his age and a constant source of pride and just fun to be around.