Not to be a downer, but....

Home sweet home! We're back from our trip for the holidays. I'm so thrilled to be back, I don't even care if the house is a pig sty...Okay, I care, but I'm still ecstatic. Babyjama is drowning in all of her new toys, and loving every second of it.

The trip to papajama's hometown was a little ho-hum this year. He grew up in Cedar Rapids, IA, and they were hit by the huge flood this past summer that was all over the news. So much of the city is having to rebuild, and many businesses just simply aren't going to open back up. There was a feeling of depression that permeated the air there. My father-in-law's business was under five feet of water when the river crested over the summer, and we went in to visit his now redone office.

The office smelled like fresh paint, all of the furniture was factory new, and the carpet looked like it had never even needed a vacuum yet. But it was so empty. His rows of filing cabinets had been lost in the flood, and nothing is hanging on the walls yet. He plans to hang large photo prints of the flood, a reminder of the devastation that's now painted over, but that shows even now in the homes whose lights are still out, and whose inhabitants may never come back.

The night before we came home, we stopped at the local Greek restaurant. The parking lot was nearly empty during Friday night dinner. My husband is friends with the woman who runs the restaurant. She smiled broadly when she saw us, but a few moments later she trailed off when saying that if things don't get better soon...

The drive home was surreal. We left on our five hour drive just before 8 PM to make it home before a winter storm hit. We were immersed in fog for the first couple of hours. Papajama sped along trying to keep his bearings by following pin-prick tail lights through the haze. Inevitably we were sometimes out of sight of other cars, and those were the strangest moments of all. It felt like falling forward and not being able to see the bottom. And all of a sudden the fog lifted and we were on a clear stretch of road for a while. Then off to the west, the sky started to light up with large horizontal bolts of lightening. We sat silently as rain pummeled our car, until the moment that it just, stopped.

I know there are metaphors and meaning in all of this, but I'm done over analyzing. So I'll just say what I'm thinking. The holidays were happy but sad, and oh so surreal.

How 'bout y'all? How were the holiday festivities?