Friends for Life

I'm an extremely lucky girl and I know it. The ladies you see in the above picture with me are the best of the best. They are my best girlfriends. We have been friends for a LONG time. Mary (in the blue) and I have been best friends since kindergarten...no lie. Anyway, we have this wonderful tradition that started in high school of having our own Christmas party every year. Over the years it has changed slightly, but essentially we hold our ritual sacred and don't change it. In recent years as our families and our lives have become crazy busy we've moved our party to after Christmas. There are several benefits to this, some of which are more time, sales, something to look forward to after the holidays, etc. The party consists of us getting together sans husbands, children, household duties (except for that year's hostess) and having an evening of fun. We take turns hosting, going from oldest to youngest. The hostess has it at her house and provides a scrumptious buffet or sit down dinner. Then we talk, and talk, and talk some more. One year we even took off to go to the mall...we haven't done that since. We 're usually just happy to catch up and gab and gossip as we snack. As the evening wanes we look over at our presents and think, "gee, guess we should start opening gifts." This process takes us AT LEAST 2 hours as we have our own system for this too and and as gifts are opened we can fawn over them and talk and discuss and compare and on and on and on. Things you can't do on Christmas morning with children breathing down your neck to open the next one. This year I made it home a little after 3 a.m. Oooops!!




We have had this party, without fail, every year, even before we were all married, and certainly through many many pregnancies and adoptions and moves. Our beloved Holly moved to California 6 years ago but I think we've been able to adjust all but one year. We've flown to her house, she's flown up here. The year she wasn't there was heartbreaking.

I realize that this friendship is rare and I consider it a huge blessing and another way my Heavenly Father shows me He loves me. These girls are my lifelines. I always know they have my back. As our lives change, we stay the same. We get together and we are 25 again, or younger! Now instead of having babies, we are seeing our babies go off to college and on missions and even getting married and making us grandmothers. (Well, ONE of us, so far!) What a wonderful gift.