I can't believe that Christmas is already over. Wow! How is it that we plan for weeks for one day and then in a blink it is over and now we have to wait a whole year to celebrate Christmas again. As you can probably tell, Christmas is one of my favorite holidays of the year. It is a time when I can actually put all of the worries of racing aside and just enjoy my family and the joys of the season.

As I told you before, we hosted our Yates Family Christmas Eve celebration this year and everyone had a great time. There was food, music, presents and most importantly lots of family togetherness. With all of the new babies in our family there was a new level of excitement in the house and all of us "big kids" had fun sharing good times with the little ones. Jamie and Cynthy had Ryan dressed up in his Christmas outfit and all of his Aunts, Uncles and cousins took turns holding him. He was so good and slept most of the time; I bet he won't be sleeping next year!! How fun that will be?

Christmas morning brought Toni's Dad to our house and along with Jamie, Cynthy, Ryan, Jon and Melissa, we spent the day opening presents, eating, and sharing wonderful family time. It was so nice to have my entire family together; the only person we were missing was Jon's girlfriend Alli who was home with her family. By the end of the day, though, I think that the excitement of the season had just about caught up with everyone and we all turned in early on Christmas night.

Well, the next day, it was back to normal for our family...everyone running in different directions. Jamie and Cynthy left for New Hampshire to visit Cynthy's family, Jon headed back to Clemson to celebrate a late Christmas with Alli and continue his search for another job. He had been working as a mechanical engineer since his graduation and unfortunately, his office in Greenville closed leaving him in the same situation as many other people...looking for a job. He has resumes out everywhere and is hopeful that something will come his way soon. Melissa is still working as Director of Sports Marketing for Wiley X and is extremely busy getting things ready for the upcoming racing season, so she headed to her office to catch up on emails and phone calls, and Toni and I headed to the shop. Typical day in the lives of the Yates family!

Well, if you have been reading my blog for a while you know that we usually take a family ski vacation this time every year. It has been a tradition since the kids were small but over the past couple of years, with the kids living on their own and having jobs and their own responsibilities it has gotten extremely difficult to get everyone together for a week and this year was no exception. So for the first time and many, many years, Toni and I are going to Park City by ourselves. We are leaving tomorrow (which also happens to be our anniversary) and coming home next week. We are looking forward to getting away, but somehow it just won't be the same without the kids and my nephews. Everyone, however, promises that next year we will somehow work it out so that we can all go on a family vacation once again.

Well, I am going to close this blog and get my things ready to go. We have a really early morning flight tomorrow so we decided to stay at the airport tonight. We will be able to get an extra hour of sleep and I won't have to make Melissa get up at 3:00 am and drive an hour to the airport and back. We will only be 5 minutes from the terminal - you can't beat that!

While on our trip, Toni and I will undoubtedly spend a lot of time reminiscing about all of the fun that we have had this past week and, for sure, missing our kids (and grandbaby!).  However, we will have fun skiing some fresh powder, enjoying the hot tub at the end of a long day, sharing a quiet dinner and most importantly, taking the time to thank God for our many blessings. After all, isn't that the real meaning of Christmas? Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year to all of you!