We had an amazing Christmas this year! I was looking forward to it so much, and I wasn't disappointed. We spent Christmas eve at the lodge with all of Paul's family. We all got our kids bundled up and got things set up for some fun sledding behind the "Prowler." Charlie did not so much enjoy the actual sledding, but did enjoy riding along in the passenger seat as the other cousins were pulled behind. I felt bad that we didn't bundle him up quite enough, but he stuck it out for quite a while! He was definitely ready to come inside. All the kids were. The dad's managed to stay out longer racing along a course they plowed out and timing each other. I'm proud to announce that Paul was the fastest driver!... though, HIS dad is confident that he would have won had he been participating.
We ate a yummy dinner of hors d'evours (did I spell that right?) which was great, though I never bothered to look up how many points shrimp and cocktail sauce would be! After cleaning up a bit, each family put together their own gingerbread house out of those awesome kits you can buy. The cake decorating class I took as a freshman in high school really came in handy! My boys were all about doing exactly what was on the box. Ours wasn't the most creative, but the icing on it looked better than some of the others!
We put together a nativity with the grandkids acting out the parts. Our family is structured beautifully with a perfect Mary, Joseph (Andy), three 5 year old wisemen (Canon is one of these), two little girl angels, Charlie (whom I didn't worry about trying to get him involved - someday he'll make a great shepherd boy) and a bunch of (four) little babies that we could take our pick from for the baby Jesus. After this, Grandma and Grandpa gave out their presents to the grandkids. We headed home at about 10:00 and had the kids open their Christmas jammies. Paul and I got new pairs of scrub bottoms as well. Once we got the kids in bed, we proceded to discuss (for about an HOUR) just how we were going to do all of the Santa stuff.
Paul and I come from complete opposite ends of the spectrum where Santa is concerned. In my house growing up, Santa filled our stockings and hid them around the house, leaving clues as to where to find them. Finding the stockings was my favorite part of Christmas, even if he usually only brought crayons, mittens, socks, and small stuff. My parents really downplayed Santa, and that was fine with me. Paul's Santa brought everything FUN! The most expensive gift and anything actually entertaining was always on display in your corner of the room. The gifts they opened from his parents were things like sweaters and clothes, etc. So we had some compromising to do, and though we didn't fight about it, we definitely didn't agree. It provided a pretty annoying buzz kill for the night. We did end up displaying the bigger gifts they asked Santa for on the couch, and then hid the stockings, leaving at least the coloring books in there!
On Christmas morning, I made our traditional Christmas breakfast casserole that needs to cook for 1.5 hours. I was surprised the boys slept in and we ended up waking up the boys at 8:00. I was excited to get the morning started. After saying a prayer together, we let them find their toys on the couch. The magic of Christmas is not lost on children, and it's so fun. Then we followed them around with the camcorder as they looked for the stockings. We then opened our gifts and realized just how spoiled we all were this year. We bought Andy and Canon a DS, and they were both so excited about it. We laid down some very stringent rules about their use and where/when they'll be allowed to play with them. We're planning on using them as parenting tools... Can you say "leverage"? I, too, was spoiled because Paul went one gift too many overboard in buying me a new "big girl phone." I am now the proud owner of a used Blackberry Pearl and it's a nice little thing! I got some new jewelry, an MP3 player, and was given the green light to get some stampin stuff the previous week. I also got some workout equipment (yoga mat and a body ball) to assist in some at-home workouts I've been doing. Paul also got a little spoiled when he got a GPS watch, new tires for his tri-bike, and some biking accessories. To say the least, we all found it to be a blessed and lucky Christmas morning!
We played with our stuff for a little while and finally got showered and ready to head back over to Paul's parents house to join the rest of the family for a few more gift exchanges and Christmas dinner. Instead of drawing names this year, the siblings decided to exchange FHE ideas. Melanie and I gave Rhyll a quick meals cookbook and some frozen meals for her to try on her busy evenings. I also enjoyed giving all the sisters and neices a headband that I sewed over Thanksgiving break. It truly is more fun to GIVE gifts than it is to receive them!
We played some games throughout the afternoon and evening and ended the night later than we should have. It was a fantastic day and one I'll remember a long time. I'm so grateful for the Spirit of Christmas that we (or at least I) felt this year. How blessed we all are for the gift of the Savior and for the chance to celebrate His birth each year. I hope you all had a great Christmas with your families as well!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Happy Birthday Nan!
Santa hid stockings at our house this year too. Jen's tradition was that everybody got up together and went into the family room to see the Christmas tree and all the presents for the first time (all presents are put out after the kids are in bed), and we have always done it like that.
I liked being able to go find the stocking, open whatever Santa had brought, and eat the lifesavers before everyone was up and we opened all the presents. It was usually dark and quiet. Santa would leave a candle going and the radio playing christmas music, it was magical.
So this year we set a second tree up in the basement and put all the gifts down there. Santa hid the stockings around the main level of the house. My idea was that they would open the stuff Santa brought and give me some extra time to sleep in, but they didn't get that they were allowed to open those gifts (they've never been allowed to before). So they had me up shortly after they got up.
The biggest problem was that Santa left an ambiguous clue that led to Mikayla's stocking before Greta's was found. The result was the Greta was convinced that Santa had not brought her a stocking. Then you have to figure out how to get them to find their mistake without revealing that you know where it is already.
Funny thing is that Mikayla acknowledges the "Santa" deal except on Christmas itself, Greta knows but I've never heard her verbalize it, and Katie was told by a boy she likes at school but she thinks he's "full of poop."
We ended up all going downstairs together as per our usual routine. Everybody liked this departure, so we'll probably incorporate it into our Christmas going forward.
I'd still like to put out the presents a few days before, because I loved looking at the packages. The anticipation of what was inside was awesome. Jen vetoes that everytime.
Anyway, I hope you have a great birthday. I guess you're traveling tomorrow, so we'll see you soon.
Yeah for another blogging friend! Sounds like your Christmas was great! We had a good time too, still have to blog about it though.
Merry Christmas friend. Sounds like a great Christmas. By the way, you did good - shrimp and cocktail sauce are very low in points, as long as you didn't have 40 of them like I usually do.
I am proud of you for doing so good with your eating at Christmas...way to go!
I am glad that you had so much fun and were able to take two traditions and combine them this year.
I hope you are having fun with your family back home.
Post a Comment