I’m having a really nice time with my family on Long Island. I feel really lucky to have gotten some great presents this year from Jay and my family, but last night, I got something really sentimental. I got an old locket that used to belong to my grandmother, Helen, who passed away before I was born. My middle name is after her. My aunt who passed away in May 2010 had a lot of her old jewelry and my uncle (who married Jay & I) and cousins went through a lot of it and picked some pieces to give to me, my parents, and sisters. I’ve never had anything of hers before, so it really meant a lot. Here’s a picture of it:
I’m waiting to pick up Jay from the airport right now. He’s in town for a quick 20 hour trip, but I am so happy that he was able to do that this year. Because Apple has a blackout period for retail workers where they can’t ask for off between Thanksgiving and New Years, Jay & I will always have a choice about whether we can spend the holidays together in Raleigh or apart, so I can see my family. Fortunately, it worked out this year that he miraculously got off on December 26 and could do a one day turnaround. I know this will probably not happen again for a while, but after the challenging year that was 2012, I am so thankful that we can spend Christmas Day together with my family.
Anyway, I should leave soon to pick him up. I leave you with a picture of me and my sisters from last night. I look like the ugly duckling standing next to 2 beautiful swans in that picture, but it captures the atmosphere of my parents’ den quite nicely, so I wanted it documented for posterity. You can see how exhausted I am in my face – I’ve gone to bed at like 1:30am every night since Thursday and yikes, am I not used to that! But it was all worth it for the great times I’ve had here, which I’ll write about in a future blog post.
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!
