WHY I LOVE CHRISTMAS

This year's Christmas card picture was probably our best ever.  We wore these costumes for Halloween, and then my wonderful friend Bill spent a few hours in Photoshop making it into this Corgi extravaganza. 

I decided to put in a few pictures from this Christmas season.  All of these are reasons why I like Christmas.  Friends, decorations, music, presents, food, and love. 

We have all of these wonderful blown glass balls, many of them made by our neighbor Tim

I love this little Christmas tree. 
Reminds me of a Christmas album I have

Gail's window framed Japanese maple

Last minute Christmas eve party

Christmas dinner at Gail and Bob's

Decorations, before I got carried away

More of the last minute Christmas Eve party

Tiffany window at Mare Island

Another Tiffany, I think this is an archangel
Zoe took me here for my birthday

Harp circle at the Capitol

I didn't manage to get pictures of playing with Charlotte at the Governor's mansion, or the Moneyworks party, or Christmas Eve at the Lutheran church, or the El Mundo Christmas concert, or my birthday dinner at Mike's, or the party we had here for the neighborhood association or playing in the waiting room at Kaiser, but they were all a part of a really wonderful Christmas.

FINALLY, THE LAST DAY OF THE WORLD- NOT

Well, here it is.   I've been building up to this all year, and it seems like its not going to happen after all.  But today is my birthday, so that kind of makes up for it.  Boy, am I sorry I didn't bother to do my christmas shopping.  Now I have to do it all in four days.  Yikes.
However, my birthday was a blast.  This morning Zoe took me to Vallejo to tour the Tiffany chapel at Mare Island.  What a treat.  This chapel has more Tiffany windows under one roof than any place west of the Mississippi. I think there are 27 Tiffany windows and about 5 that aren't from the Tiffany studios.  They are all beautiful.  I took pictures, but I can't upload pictures from my iPad, so they'll have to wait a few years before I get around to getting the other computer out and the pictures moved onto it.
After our tour we visited some art studios on this decommissioned base which weren't technically open, but there was one person there and he let us walk around.  There were some pretty interesting things in this space, but it was really cold.   After our tour, we went across the bay and had clam chowder and crab cakes for lunch, which was really delicious, and we got to sit looking out at the water.  And it was nice and warm in the restaurant.
When we got home I discovered that John had gotten me two things I really really wanted.  One was a folding table from Costco -- yes, I know it's not romantic, but I've been wanting one for two years; and the other was an electric wine opener, because in my advanced old age I can never get a bottle of wine open, and god knows I need to be able to do that.
Oh, and did I mention the beautiful red rose bouquet?  Guess I'll have to take a picture, even if just for that.  He was going to take me out to dinner, but after the aforementioned giant lunch (I didn't mention the breadsticks and ice cream) I wasn't up for a big dinner, too, so we went to see Life of Pi instead.
It's now 11:50 and if the worlds going to end today, it only has 10 more minutes here on the west coast.  We're ding our final birthday/end of the world celebration with Prosecco.