Whenever we spend the holiday season in Texas it ends up being a three-Christmas affair. This year was no different.

Part 1 – In Nacogdoches
We spent five days with my in-laws this year and celebrated Christmas Eve and Day together as a family. These five days were uneventful except for the annual brotherly argument. I love my brother-in-law. I do. He has a zeal for life that is contagious and a wonderful sense of humor. However, he and David have a way of resorting back to ten, maybe thirteen year old boys when

together. This inevitably brings out the worst in each other. The topic of argument is irrelevant, what is predictable is the escalated voices, the name calling, the threats and the not speaking. This lasts for less than an hour and then there are apologies, hugs, jokes and peace is resumed. It is like a thunderstorm blowing into the house – you can see the clouds building but there is nothing you can do to prevent the inevitable. You just have to have faith that the rainbow will return, and it always does. My sister-in-law and I have learned to blissfully ignore the argument, wait for the storms to blow over and then we both put on our peacekeepers hat and negotiate an accord. Men, brothers, they make no sense.

Part II – At Home
Once we returned from Nac we had four days to do a couple of projects at home. Our biggest project was to reorganize our home office. Our home office is approximately 12′ x 11′ and every inch of wall space is covered in shelves — and I mean EVERY INCH. It gradually became that way when David and I were running our business out of our house. However, that was at least 4 years ago and we no longer need half the stuff that is cluttering our little space. I finally transitioned my desk from being that of an interactive media project manager to a working professor. It feels good to have SEO reports from 2001 in the trash and my current copies of textbooks and resource material around me. I’m a geek, but I’m comforted by having my books around me.

Part III — At the Lake
David’s family owns a wonderful house on a nearby lake. Every New Years weekend is spent at the Lake celebrating the final Christmas event with the entire extended family. This includes 40+ people. It is a wonderful time complete with chili-cook off, Christmas Pageant performance, and gift exchange. Although it borders on chaos, everybody has a good time and it is always nice to see how big the family has gotten since the last get together.

David’s grandmother (who lives there permanently) has wonderful pet doves. However, the pet doves have multiplied over the years and she now has close to 20 pet doves. For an 85 year old woman this is quite a bit of work to keep up with and it was decided that something HAD to be done about the birds. Friday morning David’s Uncle Bo killed the doves, cleaned the doves and by Friday afternoon they were wrapped in bacon, stuffed with jalapenos, and sizzling on the grill. Although I did not eat any, David’s grandmother did. There is something authentically Texan about killing your pet birds in the morning and eating them in the afternoon.