Family Celebrations

December 21st was Susan’s birthday. Her complaint for birthdays as a child was that her relatives tended to buy her a gift for Christmas (in Christmas wrap) that would have to do for her birthday too. So we try to make her special day special.

We had plans to take our girls and their families up Grouse Mountain, or at least for a train ride at Standley Park, but all of our “best laid plans” got rained out. So we all went to Montana’s for ribs and whatever else we wanted. I’ve got to admire the servers there—they entertained all of us from ninety (Grandma) to two years old. We had a great ime, Moose horns and a wild rendition of Happy Birthday and all.

After dinner, we came back to our home for the bit birthday gift opening. I bought Susan an electric baby grand piano for her surprise—I love the way she responds to any good thing we do for her. She screams (happy screams) and cries and jumps up and down. Susan has never lost her youthful enthusiasm, joy and thankfulness. Here’s a picture of Max playing the new piano. It has a built in sound track and the kids love to pretend they’re playing a brilliant concerto.


We were able to put her gift to good use with another family celebration on Boxing Day when my extended Buzza family continued the tradition of spending this day together. This year we had only forty of the seventy or so who could come, but we had a great time of games, Chinese food and singing. Several of the family (not me) are musicians and so out came many other instruments and voices for an impromptu Christmas carol sing-a-long. It really was a delight to sit back and listen to my siblings, nieces and nephews sing, Away in a Manger, Joy to the World and even Jingle Bells.

It's been a busy week, but I've enjoyed our many family celebrations - both with our relatives and our church family.

Barry