Best Christmas Ever

For the first time in the fifteen years I’ve been with Scott, the Merriman family Christmas went to hell in a handbag. Best. Christmas. Ever. No, wait! Don’t go away.  It was awful for some! But it slowed things down a bit for the rest of us and created some unique opportunities.

Every year is a winter family reunion. We see all of Scott’s sisters, even though they are scattered around the country. (The few years Susan didn’t come, she was living in a boat in the Bahamas. It would be very hard to hold that against her.)

We’ve grown to a crowd of twenty, and we descend upon go to his oldest sister’s house for a gigantically long weekend.… Read the rest

Cousins

Recently, we went up north for Scott’s 20th college reunion. He went to the College of Wooster, in Ohio, and most of both our families still live a couple of hours away, in the Cincinnati area. His Mom drove up and met us there, and on the way out of town, we caught up with his sister, Judy, and her family, for about an hour.

I have always said that if I’d had to do things in reverse, and choose my spouse based on who I would have for in-laws, I’d still have wound up married to the same guy.… Read the rest