Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our home to yours. We wish you merrymaking, loving laughter, a banquet shared, an opportunity to cherish “old chestnuts”, and the desire to dream up plans for new adventures.

This evening’s post is a kind of scrapbook collection of images from our Rosslyn Christmas gathering with family and friends collaged together with excerpts from previous Noel related updates.

I hope you’ll join me for a quick Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la while nipping into your digestif.

Our home is crowned with a perfectly beautiful Christmas tree, our rooms are ringing with Christmas carols, and our hearts are bursting with Christmas joy. What pleasure. What privilege.

(Source: Christmas Countdown)

Christmas is enriched and savored as much in preparation and anticipation as the actual day of celebration. And there’s no finer way to cultivate the Christmas spirit than finding and decorating a Christmas tree, listening to Christmas carols, and reminiscing and pipe dreaming together.

(Source: Christmas Spirit)

A decade and a half later this first Rosslyn Christmas remains as poignant. Now nostalgia wrapped, the beneficiaries of a hand-me-down Christmas tree, a munificent crew who shared our dream to celebrate Christmas and year’s end with accomplishment and completion, and a sheltering home that has sheltered families for two centuries we are well aware of our good fortune. Essex and Rosslyn have shared an abundant inheritance that has genuinely, meaningly transformed our lives. And we are forever grateful.

(Source: Christmas Eve)

I can’t imagine more perfect Christmas gifts [than the up cycled Christmas gifts we received from Hroth, Pam, and Tony last Christmas]. Their collaboration has rendered layers of Rosslyn history — from the late 1800s and early 1900s when the icehouse was in use, through 2008 when we built the deck that yielded this garapa, to 2022 when the old deck was deconstructed and the icehouse rehabilitation was initiated — into timeless beauty that will adorn the icehouse when it is introduced/revealed next summer. These upcycled Christmas gifts are a product and symbol of renewal. Our gratitude is exceeded only by Hroth’s, Pam’s, and Tony’s collaborative accomplishment.

(Source: Upcycled Christmas Gifts)

Now pull up a chair and join us for a home cooked feast of turkey and ham, stuffing and mashed potatoes, green beans and peas, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and apple crisp.

Yes, there were toasts.

And more toasts…

Roasting and toasting, humor and poignance, embracing and leave taking. Christmas 2023 (and so many holidays before) fill Rosslyn with living memories and us with a mental scrapbook to relive in years to come.

Merry Christmas, friends. Thank you for joining me to celebrate and share this holiday. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!