So here's the short of it,

Today we made a quick trip to Atlanta for a Christmas Eve visit. 

And here's the long.

For the first time in lots of years, we drove down to Atlanta on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day.  Neither Liga nor Valdis was able to go tomorrow - but Liga could go today since she had the day off.  So we went today instead.  We had a short visit with Betsy and Wayne.  Elizabeth and Josh and Elijah were there and there were a few neighbors who dropped by as well.  Then it was over to Steve and Pat's house for a short visit with everyone there.  We got to see everyone except Ben, Meredith's fiancee as he had already left to make it home to his family for Christmas.

We went to Pisgah Methodist Church for one of their 6 Christmas Eve services at 4:30  - one of those really big new churches, with a huge choir and an orchestra  It was an impressive service.  Then following the Steve Howard family tradition, we went to a Japanese steak house for Christmas Eve dinner.  Wayne and Betsy and all came to join us and we had a great evening.  Elizabeth and Josh came in a bit late.  When they got to their seats, Josh just insisted that Elijah take off his coat.  He was standing up on a chair and off came the coat and there he was with a shirt that said, "I'm going to be a big brother".  It was a great Christmas Eve announcement!

We missed having the rest of our crew there.  Shelley, Lou, and Max; Daniel, and Valdis - but we were glad to have as many of us together as we did. 

We're back home now and have snow in the forecast for tomorrow.  If it snows, it will be the first Christmas since I've lived in Chattanooga that I remember us having a "white Christmas".

Merry Christmas to everyone.