Merry Christmas!

Phew! Barely made my Thanksgiving post in time for Christmas!  Well, I hope you all had a very Merry Little Christmas!  Ours was quiet, relaxing and, well, just plain nice.  We opted to stay put for the holiday. In the end, it was probably a very wise decision since my Dear Hubby came down with "it." Not sure what the actual medical term for "it" is, but I am pretty sure "it" was the same "it" that Landon and Simon had last week.  "It" comes with a fever, stuffiness, lethargy, aches, and moaning (oh, so much moaning!).  Hopefully. "it" stays away from the other half of us.  I did mention to the girls that we are the only ones that haven't been sick yet, since you know "our bodies are so much stronger than theirs." To that comment I got a hearty "Oh, yeah, that's right boys!!"  We gotta work on our trash talk.

However, even though the head coach was down, we were still able to get in some, as a dear friend would call it, "Forced Family Fun." 

On Wednesday night, we went to the Christmas Eve Service at our church. I told a friend whose kiddos are a few seasons beyond mine, as long as we make it through the congregational candle lighting at the end without lighting anything on fire, I will consider it a success.  Success!! Simon was touch and go there for a bit, but when I reminded him to hold his little candle straight up, we were good. The only slightly disruptive part of the service was when Simon loudly whined that I had a snack and he didn't..."No fair Mommy! I want a snack too!" Um, we were having communion. Very spiritual. 

Then we came home and, as Executive Chef for our little family, I made an Executive Decision...we would eat our "Big Christmas Dinner" at dinner time (suppertime for you Midwestern readers) on Christmas Eve not on Christmas Day (gasp!).  We went to the 4 p.m. Christmas Eve service which made the timing perfect. We ate in our church clothes, in the dining room and with the fine china (Dan was very skeptical about this decision!).  I even tried my hand at prime rib...yummo! Kids had their apple juice in wine glasses and I had my "mommy juice" in my wine glass. It all went off very well without any broken dishes. After dinner, we opened new p.j.'s from Grandma E and called it a night.

Christmas morning...we did a little program before we opened Christmas gifts.  Annika put it together and it brought back many many memories of doing this when I was a kid.  I remember how insistent my parents were that we remembered what Christmas was about, I also remember how much it prolonged the time between "time to open presents" and the actual act of present opening. I am glad my kiddos will also have this tradition (whether they like it or not). :)

Annika came up with the program

And, yes, after the program was done, we said what my dad would say... "Well, our program is done. Now what? Guess we can go get something to eat." And my kids did exactly what my siblings and I would do "No! It's time for presents!!" Har, har, so tricky.

So we opened presents, and I think the kiddos were all pretty happy. Yes, Taryn got presents, just forgot to take a picture (add that to the therapy bill)!

However, even as old as they are, I think I could have still gotten away with just getting them boxes since this was probably the most fun they had  all day! Perhaps staying inside all day wasn't the best idea.

Later in the afternoon we decorated Christmas cookies and went on our 2nd Annual Christmas Lights Scavenger hunt.

All in all, a great and very Merry Christmas (and, I may have stayed in my p.j.s all.day.long).  

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!