Holidays celebrate family, friends

Holidays are all about family and friends.

It was a wonderful treat to be able to spend the holidays at my parents, surrounded by lots of love and holiday cheer as my nieces and nephews ripped into the many presents packed around the 7-foot Christmas tree. With four of the six kids home, five of the seven grandkids and five cats, my parents had a full house.

It was a lazy kind of day — unlike years past, we no longer get up at the crack of dawn to see who can open their presents first — as we worked together on a traditional Christmas dinner, opened presents, played games and talked.

I realized how blessed I am to have the family I do — especially around the holidays. I've come to appreciate my siblings as more than inconvenient bothers that always seemed to be in the upstairs "kids" bathroom whenever I needed to get in there. (None of us wanted to use the downstairs bathroom, which had a lack of drawer space and a frequent visit by spiders when you were taking a shower — there's nothing like a blurry dark spot moving up the shower wall to cut your shower time.)

Things that drove us mad when we were younger, we can now laugh about. They are memories that create a loving bond between us, a shared history that allows us to be the people our parents always hoped we would be.

I realize I'm lucky — not everyone has the kind of family I do, and not everyone could make it home for Christmas or New Year's.

In the coming year, I wish everyone much joy and happiness — and an abundance of love.

Caroline Lobsinger is the managing editor of the Daily Bee.