Christmas in October

Our family learned this year that Christmas can be celebrated whenever families can be united, no matter what the date is on the calendar. Our Christmas in October was planned many months ago when Brian, Ann, and Natasha booked flights to come to Arizona from Thailand for a three week visit. Our nieces Christy and Pamela wanted to come to meet Brian and his new family and suggested that we celebrate Christmas in October as they wouldn't be able to make another trip from Minnesota and Seattle, respectively for the holidays. Brian thought the idea was splendid, so Dave and Megan made arrangements to also fly in from New York for a 10 day visit. Our immediate family celebrated Christmas Friday night with our gift exchange. It was a very special time for Jim and me to be able to share our Christmas traditions with Ann and especially our granddaughter Natasha. Because her parents do not celebrate Christmas in Thailand, this was technically her "first" Christmas. The next day, the entire Haynes family

• Dad and his wife Rosie,
• brother Tom, his wife Diana and daughters Christy, her husband Charles and their 7 month old son Clark, Pamela, her husband Brian and their 8 month old son Benjamin, and Lauren,
  
• brothers Ted and John,
• Jim, Dave, Meg, Brian, Ann, Natasha, and Kevin, and I

gathered to celebrate a very special Christmas for all of us. Ted arranged to have a professional photographer take pictures of the Haynes clan at the ASU Research Park in Tempe, so we were able to capture this Kodak moment. The festivities at the house (besides eating!) included more photo ops, the highlight being pictures of the three babies wearing red velvet pajamas provided by Christy and reindeer antlers from me. We exchanged gifts and had a great time being all together - a first since 2004. Since then, we have celebrated two marriages, the birth of three babies, and the anticipated arrival of two more in the next few months! How fortunate we are to have such blessings in our lives.