I enjoy Sunshine's detailed posts, so here goes one about winter break:

Yule and the lunar eclipse were on December 21.  Yule is my husband's favorite holiday. He enjoys it because it is a celebration of nature and not materialistic.  He also feels like it because it is when the days start getting longer, and feels that is a time of personal renewal - where all that one dreams of is possible.  We celebrated by meditating with candlelight, and looking at the full moon (the eclipse was in the morning).

The next few days, we saw a lot of our families.  E's sister had come in to town (she recently moved out-of-state), and my brother and his wife drove down to our parents as well for a few days.  We had fun with them - having dinner together, exchanging gifts, and playing board games.  We also attended two Christmas services - one at my husband's church, and one at his parents. Both had their own special pleasures - in the first we spent time with good friends, and in the second we enjoyed listening to some very beautiful hymns.  We drove to the first service with an old friend who now lives in Kansas and is home for the break, and we drove to the Christmas lunch with our parents with my father-in-law's student from Germany. He is an avid climber, and a very lively and fun person to talk to. Also, I cleaned out the fridge. I always have a hard time doing it, because the door opens to the wall, so I can never get the drawers out from the left side of the fridge, but this time, I think I figured out the trick. If I remove the center panel first, then they slide in and out easily.  Anyway, our fridge was pretty gross. Not sure if it is exciting to read about cleaning a fridge, but here goes: first, all the drawers and glass shelves are removed and washed.  Next, I scooped out the crumbs with a paper towel, wiped the inside of the fridge with a soapy sponge, then wiped it with a wet and then dry rag.

The next day, we went for a long walk, first to the post office to drop off some New Years Greetings for family in India, next to the hardware store to pick up a new shower head.  We couldn't properly remove the old one because we didn't have a big enough wrench, so I'm picking one up today.  We went to the homeless shelter with some more sandwiches, and our friend came for dinner.  I made a veggie curry recipe.