Longtime friends Tom and Bonnie Carr invited me and Mom over for Christmas dinner. Our family and theirs have always gotten together on Christmas day, and although my Dad is no longer with us and Tom and Bonnie's two sons are grown, married and on their own now, we continued the tradition. The meal was great (and enormous!), we got to meet some relatives of Bonnie's, and after dinner we played a cool new dominoes game. So cool, in fact, that we bought our own set of tiles a few days later.

As a bonus, on our way home through Spearfish Park, Mom and I got to see Sparkle in the Park: A dozen or more floats from the Festival of Lights parade that had been parked in the park for the public to enjoy. We tried to drive through again later in the week when Jeff and Lindsay were with us but were quite annoyed to find the display closed down well before the announced time. We learned later, however, that some of the floats had been vandalized, so I guess I can't blame the organizers for not wanting to leave them out forever.

Photo by a relative of Bonnie's