goodbye ’til next year

We finally had to succumb to taking down our “friends” we’ve loved having hanging out with us in our kitchen this season. As I’ve mentioned before, Christmas cards are one of my favorite things about Christmas. We have lived in so many different places that I feel like Christmas cards are a catch-all way to stay in touch. So, each day in December as we add more pictures to our kitchen we feel like we get to get “caught up” once again with what’s going on with them. And then we feel sad and empty when we have to take them all down and wait ’til next year to see them again. (Except I must admit I love to have things cleared out and not have to keep picking up cards Lucy’s pulled down.)Each year we have a contest and a picture winner. This year there were two winners:
The one on the left won first place. These are our friends who, until a couple weeks ago, lived in China. They were the ones who helped us out SO much when we went to live there a couple summers ago. Is that not the coolest picture? (You may have to double click on it to see it better.) I want to go live in China again just to get their photographer to take our family picture (ok, and for a lot of other reasons too). And second place is the one on the right (they were docked a few points because the parents weren’t included in the picture…we love to see what our friends look like, not just the kids, but hey, they get an A+ for the picture and cute kids).

**Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with the contest, it’s just Dave and the kids. So don’t wallow in misery if your picture wasn’t a winner, I’m sure it was in the “runners-up”! ha ha