Christmas Eve

The wait is over and the holiday is already behind us, but we had a wonderful Christmas this year. I had my family around me, my health (although a little shaky with a cold),and my heart filled with the spirit of Christmas.

Christmas Eve the girls and I took my mom and dad to mass at St. Margaret of Scotland. I have not been in a Catholic Church in years and was surprise how much of the mass I remember. Beth was not sure what was going on but she was a trooper.

We came home and cooked dinner which is the Seven Fishes dinner that I grow up having but we have put our own spin on what fishes are cooked as the other fishes no one would eat any more,and ate around 6:30 which is late for us but well worth it. Mom helped cook and it was great to have her in the kitchen with me again. Beth also helped with things going on in the kitchen this year and I think she had fun. Mainly I think because her Mom Mom was here. She was so excited to have them come down this year. Her and Stephanie were just crawling out of their skin with excitment. David and Danny also came down to spend Chritmas with us. They came down Christmas Eve spent the night, went back home to have Christmas breakfast with Danny's mom and sister then drove back down to have dinner with us and spend the night. We are so blessed to have had veryone with us this year.

We also have a tradition of hiding a Cyrstal Angel so the one picture is of Beth, Amy,and my mother looking for it on Christmas Eve. Floyd found it last year and so he got to hide it this year. I told them to look high as Floyd is tall. Beth found it the next day so she will be the one to hide it next year.

We eat dinner, have a pollyanna, then sit around and talk, send everyone to bed and then Rob and I bring up the presents and put them under the tree. The kids still like to be surprised on Christmas morning. We had 10 of us on Christmas morning and it was so great to have everyone here at once to wake up together and celebrate Christmas.

It was a wonderful Christmas!

Hip Hip Hooray!!!

I finished the never ending task of wrapping presents last night!! Need I tell you how relieved I am, now I can bake and have fun with the hoilday. The girls will be here this weekend and we are going to be baking up a storm. I give out cookies as gifts to some of my friends so it will look like a bakery in my kitchen.

I love doing things like this with my children and love the fact that they want to do it with me. I hear so many families who can barely tollerate each other this time of year and I am gratful for my family.

Christmas Party

On Saturday night we had out Christmas party with friends and family. It is differnet each year. We had a good crowd this year. As always we played Guesstures and the Chinese gift exchange. This year we had a couple of "newbies" at both so it was fun to watch as they give us clues to the words they had picked. The "popular things at the exchange were the Stanley tools, Hoops and YoYo pillows, and snowman that light up.
It was great to be able to spend time having fun and relaxing with family and freinds who both mean a lot to me. I love to be around people and esepcially at a gathering. It helps me with the spirit of Christmas to have my heart filled so.

The picture is of our WHOVILLE tree. It is straight on the bottom then had a hump toward the top so it looks like it is leaning but it isn't. This tree has character!

Our Christmas Tree

Well we got our tree. It took all of 15 minutes from leaving the house to putting it in the stand. We go to the local fire house which is just around the corner from where we live. So we all piled in the car and got to the fire house, we walked around saw one the fire guys cut the bottom to fit into the stand and off we went. Of course we had to talk and joke with them. We even took pictures because the girls know that I need pictures of everything. The girls even took the branches they cut off and did a pose from White Christmas, the Sisters part with the big fans. It was hysterical. Oh and the best part was they were in a barn near the fire house so it would not matter what kind of weather it was it was indoors.



We got it home put it in the stand and stepped back and the tree trunk is crooked so the tree looks like it is leaning. We all bet that you David will be the first to point it out. HeHe!

So our tree is in the stand and will be left to drop so we can put up the decoration on it in the next day or two.