Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night

I had a wonderful Christmas, thanks to friends and family.  It really started on Christmas eve, when I was invited to a Hanukkah party at a friend's house and spent a few hours watching four children, two dogs and a dozen adult family members and other loved ones of my friend cooking, eating, drinking a little, talking, giving gifts to the children and relaxing in a seemingly chaotic scene.

On Christmas day at around noon I went to the local restaurant nearby where I always go on holidays and birthdays for lunch in the vain hope that one of my prodigal sons would show up to begin our first day of the rest of our lives.  It was closed for Christmas and no Lambertons or Rogers were around.  None came the morning before at the bagel place in town either, where I'd invited them, so I guess they all still are advocates of patricide, even as fully mature adults, as inculcated in them as tender children by their covertly narcissistic (in my opinion) mother and her coterie of "professionals."

I then went to a friend's house where we set up and trimmed a tree and enjoyed Christmas day with food and talk and the exchange of presents.  I received some lovely gifts including a warm down throw, a book on tape and other thoughtful gifts from my friend, siblings and a neighbor.

The day done, gone the sun, we took down the tree and I returned home to an empty house.  I am hopeful that the coming year will be a good one although this past year contained several shocking events such as my sudden (forced) retirement, finding out I had a daughter-in-law a year after the advent, being friended and then unfriended on FB by the same personage on the day before long-scheduled surgery, surgery and the election shocker.  Whoo boy, what's up for 2017?