I had a lot of lovely musical pre-Christmas gifts this year. First off, I received a lovely writeup in the feature “This Woman’s Work” on the great female-centric (woohoo!) music blog Womenfolk. Thanks to Robbie McCown, the mastermind behind the blog. (And I owe her even more thanks, because it seems like the post has generated some more bloggy interest out there on the internet!) The post, linked to here, actually went up a couple weeks ago, right before I had another warm fuzzy pre-Christmas gift in the form of my holiday show at Hotel Cafe! The band, including Tim Young, Branden Harper, Mike Chiaburu and Haviland Stillwell, really gelled. We had a fabulous time and a great audience who were really troopers to make it out in the monsoon-like weather. Reportedly, they had a great time, too!
The show was essentially a send-off for us, because we left two days later to visit my family in South Florida. After a seemingly interminable flight to Philadelphia (GREAT routing) and another interminable wait for our delayed next flight, we made it! The next few days of fun and sun proved enough for us to forget our air travel woes. Our next stop, just before Christmas, was Michigan, to meet up with Mike’s family. This time (long story) we drove rather than flew, and made it to West Michigan by Christmas Eve, in time to celebrate with nephews, nieces, brothers, sisters, parents, family friends, new babies, new puppies…ok, just one of the last of those, but there were lots of us. I love a nice full house! And I also have to mention that Mike and I really scored with our presents of Ugly Dolls to our nephews. They have not been separated from them since, which tickles me because I LOVE this things. You should visit the Ugly Doll site if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
Michigan is absolutely buried in snow, or was until the rain came today and melted a lot of it. I keep blinking every time I look outside as though maybe the scene will change and I’ll be back to familiar palm trees and brush rather then leafless trees and miles of white ground. Actually, this was my first “white Christmas” since I was a kid in Cleveland, Ohio, and it was weird to realize that a nice sunny Christmas actually feels more normal to me! That didn’t make it any less fun, though, and after a day or so of what feels like hibernation, I think Mike and I are going to venture out into the cold and spend some gift card money (hurrah!) and see some good friends and more family later this evening. Things are moving very slowly, which is a fantastic change of pace…and now I must go, as my mother-in-law has just made us some more food. YUM.