I must admit, I get more excited watching loved ones open presents than I do about opening the gifts I’ve received. But now that all the packages have been opened, their wrapping papers gathered up and tossed away, I can’t resist sharing some of the awesomeness of my favorite gifts I received.

I was lucky to celebrate five times this year. Once with Steve, once with my kids, once with my mom, Tom and my siblings, once with Steve’s family and once with my dad and Christiane.

The first of my favorite presents was a book that includes Steve’s writings about my awesomeness, so, of course, it would be at the top of my favorites list. 🙂

It’s a tiny book I can fit in the palm of my hand, but its meaning is huge.

What a compliment from someone who writes so poetically!

I can’t imagine anything nicer than being a black lab. 🙂

Just one of the pages that made me smile.

My next awesome gift came from my son, Adam, and his wife, Emily (and Tommy, of course!):

I love this gift because:

1. It gives Steve and me something fun to talk about and look forward to–where do we go? The world is our oyster.
2. Most of all, I know what a sacrifice this was for both Adam and Emily. Adam travels a lot for his job and with the arrival of their son, Tommy, that’s a sacrifice for all three of them. Plus, Adam works hard to assure he racks up the most possible frequent flyer miles, which not only gives him perks like upgrades, Admiral’s Club, etc., it provides free travel for their vacations. So, to give us 100,000 miles was a real gift.

And of course, I LOVE this picture they gave me of the three of them!

My next treasure was given to me by my daughter, Andrea–a gorgeous book she created on Shutterfly. It’s filled photographs of an Alaskan cruise I took with Andrea, Adam and Emily in 2013. She also included writings of her memories of everything we did during our ten days together. She even wrote a haiku!

How fun it was to flip through the pages and re-live the memories. I’m ready for another family trip!

Harold-the-Donkey is behind Coco-the-Cat.

And last but not least, there’s Harold the Donkey. He is a piece of art given to me by Steve’s sister, Kim and her husband, Roy. His head bobs and his tail sways in the gentlest of breezes, and just looking at his “hee-haw” face makes me smile. He has a place of honor on our back deck.

But, I have to say that the best gift of all was time together with loved ones, so well-spent that I forgot to take a single picture of any of our five events. The way I see it, that’s a good thing . . . I think. 🙂

I’d love to hear about your awesome holidays!

Wishing you a 2015 filled with peace and happiness.