Gooney Bush Farm and Family.: Final Blitz. December.

And here we are. December. The end of the blitz, and the end of the year. I'm finally caught up and can proudly say that I have been blogging for a full year. I'll try not to neglect my duties again in the new year.

This month Nicholas and Jonathan celebrated their 21st birthdays and I celebrated my 47th. We are definitely a "maturing" family.

We enjoyed two concerts from the Georgia Childrens' Chorus in December. This is Hannah-Jo's third choir season with this esteemed group. Each year they perform Christmas selections at the State Botanical Gardens

and the Hugh Hodgson Hall at the University of Georgia. All of their songs were beautiful, but they performed a particularly moving rendition of Silent Night in German, English, and American Sign Language. The final verse was given in silence and sign language. Their performance was polished and deeply spiritual. I hope to have a video segment of it to add when we receive our video from the producer.

Our Christmas celebration was warm and cozy at home this year. We gave the partridge a break and put the cockatiel in the tree instead

. This is our little buddy Artoo. He says hello.

As usual, there were more gifts than the camera can hold in a single shot.

Here is a sample of them stacked in front of one of our many fires

that we had during this most recent cold snap. Everyone's favorite gift is the new flat screen television. We have been months without a t.v., and we've certainly never owned anything like this.

These are the furniture pieces that our skilled builder, Marty Stonesifer, made for us.

The chest is Joseph's gift for holding ammunition and gun cleaning equipment, and the jelly cabinet is for Joni's pickled and packed jars of yummy things.

Her apron says "Merry Christmas ya'll." We'll turn her into a southern belle yet. This picture is misleading as Joni was in Boston with her family for Christmas this year. Joseph was unable to travel due to his new employment with Banks County Fire Department. The bookshelf was made for Kaitlin and is a gift from Ethan.

As usual the opening of gifts is a bit dizzying. I think this photo represents how it all looks from my brain.

(if you enlarge it the periphery is a bit blurred.) The bitty really enjoyed her new clothes and her new bed.

Chloe and Kaitlin received Kindles and are very happy with them. Hannah-Jo acquired an MP3 player. We added quite a few new Barbie dolls to the mess in their room too (geez). We gave Ethan a fire-proof safe for his gun and important documents. Jon was given cammo and outdoor equipment, and Nic received the usual books (the biography of cancer...eeww) and some Carhartt clothing. Mine and George's gifts were the happy sounds and images (and the bill for it all *smile*).

I worked with the Christmas mommas and babies on Christmas Day this year. The momentum of the day was somewhat broken. All of that was forgotten when the Christmas snow began to blanket the farm in a still, white covering later in the day. I love the sound of snow falling. I stood at the gate for several minutes when I arrived home, at 8p.m., just to listen to it -Tom Foolery for a girl without a coat who only recently got well.

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