Garrity Christmas!

This past weekend was the highly anticipated Garrity family Christmas gathering. Twenty years or so ago, we all decided that it was too hard to try and get us all together on Christmas day, so we opted to have our family gathering a couple weeks before ... that way no one needs to worry about where they're going to be on that day.

T.A. and Ann hosted this year and here's some of the gang in their living room. Aunt Anonymous is telling a funny story, or looking at something on the ceiling ... I'm not sure which...

These four are always happy when they get to spend some time together and this is one of only a couple of times per year where Hannah and Lizzie are okay with still being dressed alike!

Here's Ann hard at work in the kitchen. The meal was delicious!

The table was beautiful, too. Very festive, don't you think?

The Christmas Crackers are always a high point. You pull them open and you get a paper crown, a little gift and a joke:

Here are Hannah and Lizzie getting ready to pull open their crackers:

This is one of my favorite cracker photos EVER! So cute!!!

I'm pretty sure Brenna is negotiating for Rob's toy!

Then it's time for us to celebrate Dad/Grandpa's birthday. This  year he turned either 81 or 49 ... I can never remember (some family members are notoriously bad at math!)

Grandpa and the grandkids (Casey was still at college). I like this because Grandpa is ALMOST smiling.

Then it was time to go see Uncle T.A. sworn in for another term on the Somers Town Council. First the grandkids had to enact several laws (clearly Tommy is following in his dad's footsteps!)

The Town Clerk swore T.A. in while his children held the family Bible:

Then we took a gazillion photos. Here's T.A. with the Bentley's who (amazingly) all have their eyes open:

Tommy and Brenna and the family Bible:

The three Toms. I have no idea who is Jr., Sr., etc, but it's still a nice picture...

And, of course, Hannah and Lizzie had their turn with the public official:

And here's the whole group. I know Mom would have LOVED being there, so I believe she was, watching the whole thing and cheering on T.A.'s success. Especially because he is a Republican:

After the ceremony we took over the Town Hall and looked at the gingerbread house display:

And the safe that's been in the building since 1882:

Then we came home and watched and extremely mean-spirited and inappropriate for children Christmas show: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Seriously if you watch it now, it will make you rethink exactly how nice Santa really is:

The fun continued the next day. We threw the kids outside and they crowded into this house in the backyard:

It was a great weekend and we did stop by and see my Mom's gravestone. That was sad (for me) but I really did feel like she was there with us as we told stories, ate good food and laughed until we cried, same as always. As we were leaving the Town Hall  from T.A.'s swearing in ceremony, I saw this picture of the elephant and the town Christmas tree at dusk and started yelling at Rob OPEN THE WINDOW OPEN THE WINDOW OPEN THE WINDOW (they were locked) so I could get the shot, but thought I'd missed it due to Robert Andretti's driving.What a lovely surprise to come home and find that I didn't. So, Merry Christmas from Somers!