Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! We hope all of you reading this are enjoying a great Advent this year as you celebrate with the ones you love most. There are many around all of us who struggle to do that. All my kids are under one roof. I understand this more fully now that I know the day they will be making homes of their own is not as far off as it used to be.

Jenna has completed her degree with Trevecca and moved home. (Her graduation will be this spring.) She will begin a 15 month accelerated nursing program in about four weeks and commute to Hendersonville for classes. Upon getting home Jenna has torn into making peanut butter balls and pies like a mad woman. She has all of her customers hooked on her holiday sweets and they continue to place orders even though she is not trying to raise money for a mission trip this time.

Ben is home from Tech where he had a great first semester of college. He was much better prepared for college than I was which shows given that his first semester GPA is double what mine was. (I wound up almost doubling my cumulative GPA by the time I graduated.) Ben will have a new roommate when he returns to school as his original roommate decided to move to a private dorm room.

Nate and I finished our classes late last week. The kids and I celebrated these milestones with lunch at Thomas Drugs last Thursday. Vicki wasn't able to join us since she still has a few days to put in before the end of the year.

I think this has been a less stressful pre-Christmas season this year. Vicki got all of her shopping done yesterday ahead of Kenny and Lori's party and commented that for once she won't be rushing from Walmart to get to the Christmas Eve service at church. We've also had time to work in a couple of movies on our movie list—A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker were both really good.

Speaking of Kenny and Lori's party, Kenny had a great time last night with the fact that Jenna brought a boyfriend and he tried to get some mileage out of that by putting Nolan in the spotlight in front of everyone. I think Nolan got one up on Kenny, though, when Kenny couldn't remember Nolan's name.

We have a new addition to our family. Nate and I came home from school the other day and I heard this strange chirping noise in the front yard. As I walked that way to investigate the cutest little orange and white kitten ran out from the bushes at the end of the walk to meet me and climbed right up my pants and shirt to my shoulders. We are trying to decide on a name and Merit seems to be sticking. Fluffy, our other cat, is not happy (yet).

Mom is doing well. We have certainly seen a number of changes in the last year. We can't get her out like we used to, though we will make sure she gets to Christmas Brunch. One big change this year is that this event is moving from Mrs. Connie's house to her granddaughter Morgan's house. The location may be different but the love and the food will be the same.

So that's the snapshot of the Swann Family as we roll into Christmas 2019 tomorrow. Life is good and I am very thankful for gift of family and friends. Merry Christmas!

Joe