Three Beautiful Things 12/24/15: Sticking With It, Christmas Eve Tradition Renewed, Singing Carols

1.  It's satisfying to know that in some very important parts of my life I haven't given up or failed and today was a good day to feel that satisfaction.  For starters, today the Deke and I completed our eighteenth year of marriage. A lot in each of our histories suggested we'd never last this long, but we continue to enjoy each other and do all we can to take care of ourselves and be good to each other and to our friends and family. Today I wrote the 3300th entry in my blog and a lot in my history would suggest that I'd never stick with a project this long -- but, here it is, nine years since I started kellogg bloggin' and I am more consistent about publishing something every day than I ever have been.  If you read my 3300th blog post, here, you'll read about changes that took place in the last year in my photography -- and having written this in my blog on our anniversary made me think that I bought my first digital camera when I started my blog (in late 2006) and that I've done a pretty good job of sticking with this avocation, made some slow improvement in taking pictures, and, most of all, enjoyed myself immensely.

2. When the Deke was a kid, her family ate a spread of light food on Christmas Eve, with shrimp and cocktail sauce and ruffled potato chips and dip being the featured items. On the rare occasion that the Deke and I have been in our own home together on Christmas Eve, we've continued this tradition and, tonight, while we were not in our apartment home, we were at Molly and Hiram's and we continued this tradition with shrimp, cocktail sauce, salami, olives, cheese, crackers, ruffled potato chips, a plate of vegetables, and (I'm sure I've missed something) a bowl of chopped fruit.

3. Hiram, the Deke, and Molly sang Christmas carols in harmony around the table. Next year, my hope is that we'll start singing the carols a couple weeks in advance of Christmas because I'm a slow learner and need a lot of help with singing harmony, but with time and help, I can join in and we can have four parts -- and, who knows? Maybe we'll go to a house or two on Diaz Road and sing for some people!