Christmas Break

First things first--for those of you who have been eagerly waiting to hear--I did indeed survive beyond Christmas day in our annual game of live, family Clue. That is at least one day longer than I have any of the years previous to this one. I cannot reveal whether or not I am still "alive" as some of my family reads this and it might give them an unnecessary advantage. That's all I can say about that.

Christmas was wonderful. Our celebration in Ripley was great. The children's choir did a wonderful job. The church looked beautiful. Everything was just lovely.

Christmas day, I headed north and have spent the last few days with family, friends, and community eating, playing, opening little gifts. I LOVE my family. They are so much fun and so easy to get along with really. We played sardines one night. If you are unfamiliar, it is like reverse hide-and-go-seek. In hide-and-go-seek, everyone hides and one person seeks. In sardines, one person hides and everyone else seeks. When a person finds the person in hiding, he or she squeezes into the same hiding space. Eventually everyone is in the same hiding space, and the last one to find the group then goes and hides. In traditional Heger fashion, we have to add a twist--we play in the dark. Way more fun. Especially now that most of us are in our late teens and twenties, so we are a little big to find too many good hiding spaces. It does get interesting groping around in the dark, not knowing if anyone else is in the room with you, and, if you happen to run into someone else, the conversations that transpire as we ascertain who it is. My mom didn't want to play with us, but she had a great time sitting on the living room couch in the dark just listening to the conversation happening around her. I was a little sore the next day. I actually think it was from so much laughing rather than any injury I incurred.

Right now I am at the motherhouse. We have a community tradition that has been re-encouraged in recent years of making an end-of-the-year retreat. Retreat begins with dinner tonight, but I was in the area this morning, so I am here a bit early to get settled, get some computer work out of the way, and prepare myself for the next few days. It is a wonderful tradition around which to gather, and I'm looking forward to spending the last days of what has been a great year with my sisters.

Happy and safe New Years to all.

Peace.