December 2007

Today is December 4th and I am getting a little bit worried because I don't have any Christmas decorations up in my house yet. Last night we were going to start decorating the tree but everyone was too tired so we put it off another day. On a bright note I just mailed the last of my Christmas cards so I do have other holiday things taken care of.

Saturday was our family St. Nicholas Day - this is a wonderful tradition that was imported by my grandparents from Holland. It is amazing when we have this celebration to look around the room and see 4 generations interacting with each other. My dad is currently the patriarch of the Vuyk family - we are grateful that he was with another year for this celebration, it wasn't too long ago that we almost lost him. Gratefully he has been better and feeling great until he had a bad fall a few months ago and broke three ribs - it was very painful, but he is getting better every day.

Two of my sisters and one brother attended the party, we miss Tom and Mitsugu not being there. Lori had three of her nine children in attendance and six of her grandchildren. I had all three of my children, their spouses, and all six of my grandchildren were there. Randy and Liz had Bryan there - their other three boys were unable to attend. Cindy had both of her children Bretton and Natalie there. It gets harder every year to get our family together - there are so many of them spread out across the country and even some in other parts of the world.

Uncle Pouwel arranged to have St. Nicholas come to the party and his horse ate the carrots that we left for him in the wooden shoes on the front porch. We feasted on some Dutch delicacies and had a great round of poetry with the gifts. It was a really fun time and it was great to get together with some of my cousins that I don't get to see very often.

It is a huge blessing to know about Dutch traditions and to have another connection to my heritage. I am so grateful to my grandparents for coming to this country and giving all of us such a wonderful life and at the same time keeping and sharing the traditions that are such a great connection to the past.