My mother is adopted and recently (three years ago) found her biological family. Throughout her search for them, I kind of subconsciously considered it her thing - her parents, her family - and it wasn’t until she found them and they welcomed us with open arms that I realized it affected me too. I come from a very small family so it was overwhelming to suddenly have a whole new set of grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. Anyway, my new grandmother’s birthday is on Christmas Day, and unlike some other Christmas birthday people who prefer to keep their birthdays separate from the holiday, she is totally Christmas obsessed (like me!) and leans into it. This is the cake we had made for her the first year we met them.

This little guy has a laundry list of emotional/behavioral concerns but we’re slowly working through these challenges. He took the time to write me a Christmas card. This means everything to me.

He raised almost $850, spent 2 days buying groceries and Christmas gifts, and finally dropped it off today. I've never been so proud of one person in my life.

I cooked it all by myself for the first time for hubby and me. First picture is me when I realized everything worked, second is the result.

I can’t play it properly on a modern PC - it’s almost impossible to place roads without them going all over the screen. Even when we try slowing the mouse movement speed it didn’t resolve this problem.

My boyfriend has really come through to make the holidays special anyways. So I mustered up some Christmas spirit and made him this garland of his favorite star wars characters

They knew how much I love Star Wars. It is from the 1999 Pepsi/Albertsons raffle give away. I am blown away.

I hope this Christmas brought everyone a little magic and I hope 2021 will bring everyone a lot less darkness and a lot more goodness and light