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Monday, December 26, 2011

December 21st - 25th

Picture-A-Day: I think I can, I think I can... Just a few more days left of 2011. I'm still not used to writing 2011. My hand wants to write 2006 or 2009. Weird. Anyway, we had a really nice Christmas. I always feel a little sad the years we don't go to MN for Christmas. There really is no place like home. I'm so lucky and blessed to have no drama in my family. My mom and dad and brothers and sisters-in-law (and us) - we all love each other, love to spend time together, and maybe it's because we're all so spread out, but we always get along when we're together. That wasn't always the case with me and my bro Jake. We didn't used to get along well for several adolescent years. But the less we saw of each other, the better we got along when we did get together. Does that sound bad? I don't know, but over the last 10 years or so we've both grown up a lot, gotten married, had children. And now we love spending time together. But alas, this is an odd year, and so, not a Christmas family reunion year. But lucky us, my baby brother is getting married in June, so we will have 2 family reunions in 2012! Nevertheless, we did have a lovely Christmas at home. We spent the 24th and 25th mostly at home, doing family things together. To celebrate Christmas Eve (I feel strongly that Christmas Eve must be celebrated - probably because my mom's family has a big party on Christmas Eve every year. They have as long as I can remember. Maybe since before I was born, I don't know. But I just can not NOT celebrate Christmas Eve. So, since we didn't have any plans, I made popcorn and chili cheese dip and cookies. We played Apples to Apples Jr. Then we put the boys to bed and the 5 of us watched Elf (the best Christmas movie EVER). Then we put the girls to bed, then loaded up the tree with all the goods. It wasn't a big party, but it was fun, together, family time. I get as giddy as a little kid on Christmas morning. I got up at 6am to find Sage on the couch watching TV because she "couldn't sleep." Everyone else got up around 7. We of course opened presents, had monkey bread, then went to church. I loved our Christmas morning service. I love our church. It was a small crowd and the "band" was down to about 3 people, so we had an acoustic caroling jam session. We came home and Derrick spent the entire afternoon cooking an amazing dinner, of which I've already bragged profusely on Facebook. I spent most of the afternoon making an apple pie. The kids got Just Dance for the Wii, and we all took turns dancing. That game is so fun! Everyone loves it. Ok, here are the pictures:
12.23.11. - I love these ghosty action shots. The boys were working together building "train tracks" out of books, and running a truck over it. In this picture the books are all scattered from being run over a few times.
12.24.11 - I made Challah bread for Christmas. Challah is some kind of Jewish bread. I don't really know the significance of it. Derrick had a recipe for homemade stuffing, which called for Challah bread, so he asked me to make some. I made the dough in the bread machine, then baked it in the oven. It's SO DELICIOUS! And the stuffing was amazing.
12.25.11 - Christmas Day in the evening. When I was a kid my Grandma used to make all the grandkids new PJ's for Christmas. Every year when we went over there for the big Christmas Eve party, we'd all get our new jammies, and we'd all wear them home that night. Since the grandkids are mostly all grown up now, the tradition has moved on to the great grandkids. And since we didn't make it to the Christmas Eve party, they got to open them on Christmas morning along with all the other presents. So here they are in their Grammie Jammies. This is the "silly face" picture. :)
G'nite y'all. Hope you had a lovely Christmas too.

1 comment:

  1. I just loved your story. Thanks for sharing. I really enjoyed Sunday's service also. I was a little worried (didn't now if anyone would show up or not) but it really turned out nice. Thanks for all you and Derrick do as you live out the Jesus way. Love your whole family.
    Al

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