Michigan, here I come!

Tomorrow is the end of my Los Angeles year. I'll board a plane shortly after sunrise and head to Michigan, my winter home for the next month, where I know they've got snow and cold temperatures and weeks of parties and celebrations and everything I want this Christmas season: my friends and family.

2013 was quite a year. As Angela and I talked about Christmas cards we decided we couldn't top last year's oceanside shots and went with the more traditional year in review via photographs. I love Christmas cards. I love getting them in the mail, sitting down to write them, seeing who's sent a letter and who's moved. It's old fashioned but it's something I cling too. My Grandma MacDonald used to write out cards for everyone in her address book and it often took her all of December. Sometimes she'd still have a few to send out after Christmas but it didn't matter because she'd write a note to include and she enjoyed it. I want to carry that on.

In the top left is Angela and I at her University of Phoenix graduation where I participated in the ceremony as a faculty member and she received her Master of Arts in teaching. Then there we are "skiing" on Grouse Mountain in Vancouver. Then that's all of us at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles when Mom and Dad visited this spring.

The milkshakes are a little obvious but we're eating at Canter's and we had the best meal that day. We ate and laughed and my mom bonded with the waitress who was being treated badly by her manager. I watched my mom give that woman a big tip that day and it reminded me of just one of the million reasons I love my parents. Below that is Ang and I by the space shuttle Endeavor when we chaperoned her sixth graders on a field trip this fall. We saw the Endeavor twice this year and it was awesome. I hope to visit again next year! Science is cool!

In the middle and right below are pics from our day at the American Music Awards Red Carpet. Then me and Mom at Venice Beach on her birthday in May soaking up the sun and getting our toes wet. Below that we're back at Grouse Mountain with cousin Doris who spent the weekend in Vancouver with us sightseeing and having just the best time.

The bottom row is Angela and I at a Tigers game, one of many we attended this year. It's also the photo we tucked inside my grandparents' caskets as we laid them to rest this summer. Next season won't be quite the same without them.

Next is Angela and I at Griffith Park, in the Observatory parking lot overlooking the Hollywood sign. We finally got mom and dad up there at 7am on a Sunday morning with coffee and donuts and it was a perfect way to see the city. Quietly and without smog. Finally, a shot from Mom and Dad's surprise 40th anniversary party. We started planning it almost a year ago. What a year it has been.

This Christmas will be different. We lost three grandparents this summer/fall. It will be the first time in my life when I don't get off a plane in December and call my Grandma Cows to tell her I've landed (she was terrified of us traveling and I know she rarely slept when we were scheduled to fly but hearing the relaxation in her voice and giving her a big hug soon after made it all worth it). It will be the first time we have a Knapp family Christmas without our matriarch (I will drink a big glass of egg nog this year for you Grandma, even if the rest of my family thinks egg nog is weird, I love it! Thank you for giving me that!). It will be the first time we don't trek to Harry & David to load up on Moose Munch and summer sausage and all of the treats grandpa loved (we switched to treats some time ago, after he quit smoking so much but I still remember when Angela and I used to wrap up pouches of pipe tobacco as his gift each year!). It will be different. It will be hard. And yet? It will be.

There is so much that will happen over the next few weeks. Christmas parties and open houses, worship services, dinners with friends, Christmas celebrations with families both in Michigan and in Canada, gifts to wrap and unwrap, New Years balls to watch drop, Rose Bowl fun with Michigan State in the mix, baking the Christmas morning plunkett with the grandneighbor girls, unwrapping Christmas morning gifts with all three of the grandneighbors, playing board games with Susie, visiting old friends. I can not wait.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Happy New Year too! 2013 was an amazing year. And I know 2014 has so much more in store!