Family Mellmann

In keeping with Mellmann family tradition, our table was filled with fondue flavors for the nineteenth year (minus a few years when we traveled for Christmas).  We topped off our fondue feast with a Chocolate Raspberry Mousse Cake.  Fortunately, we sing and enjoy presents before dining; after all that food I'm not sure I could take a deep enough breath to see more than a quarter note. :) From our family to yours, may this be a blessed Christmas and may your year be filled with family, fun, and some good old belly laughs (we had lots tonight).  Wishing you good health and great joy.   Merry Christmas from Joerg, Katherine, Patrick, and Erika

Tonight we had our Trinity Christmas concert.  Patrick's friend was in the program and is decked out in a perfectly fitting suit with a fun story.  (Proud parent brag alert) When his "little" (his young partner in Trinity's Big/little mentor program) showed an interest in dressing sharply for school (as Patrick has for several years now) Patrick decided to take advantage of his professional connection (he works at Men's Warehouse) to treat him to a suit perfectly tailored to his tiny frame. Don't these gentlemen look handsome!

Lights are aglow along the front of the house.  Every window sparkles with candle light.  The house is decorated with evergreens and cranberries, lights and kid artwork, and Spotify is cranking out the Christmas tunes.  I think we are officially ready for Christmas, and just in time.  Now we start the concerts and parties!

One. Nine. Two numbers. Two meanings. Today, Patrick turns 19.  I used nineteen single candles on his cake (sorry about the waxy glaze, everyone...it take a long time to light all those tiny wicks) but considered cheating and using the two digits; one and nine.  It would have been quicker to light, but I've been using single candles for...nineteen years.  No point in changing things now. One Nine also happens to be the runway from which Patrick often takes off when he flies, including today when he flew another solo...what a fun way to celebrate a birthday! Happy Birthday to my favorite son!

There have been so many changes in the last  year, mostly for Patrick.  He turned 18 and entered adulthood, graduated high school, and started college.  And with adulthood comes the loss of allowance and curfew, and the gaining of new privileges and responsibilities.  It also turns out that your Advent calendar shrinks a little, shifting from hand wrapped gifts and treats to, although imported, store-bought chocolate. Since the real meaning of Advent is the countdown and anticipation to Christmas and celebrating Christ's birth, the size of your chocolate hopefully doesn't really matter.  And since this mother's love is not measured by the size and weight of chocolate or treats, this change in Advent calendar is simply the next step in a progression from little boy to man, and a little representative of a mother's unwillingness to completely let go of the little boy.  One day the Advent calendars will stop completely until, perhaps, the day when they restart in the next