My father and his wife Martha and six of my siblings gathered for Christmas in Santa Barbara, and we had dinner at Nancy's parents' cabin in the mountains on Paradise Road.

Dinner table 1

Dinner table 2

Dinner table 3

Guys wash dishes

Opening presents

Gerry plays keyboard, Mary Jane watches

Swinging on a rope from a tree:

Matt

Mary helps Ger get on the rope

Gerrry

Pop

For some reason, Pop wanted pictures of us with one foot bare. Maybe it was because he could splay his little toe away, and we couldn't.

Pop and Lanie barefoot

Pop and Matt barefoot

Colin, Scott, Matt, Gerry barefoot

Nancy's mother had assembled a collage of all US military identification badges. Scott was astonished to find his Combat Engineer emblem on the wall:

Scott and collage

Ex-PFC Campbell locates his unit

It was the first time my five original siblings and I had been together in many years:

Us Six