A pause between holidays

A belated Merry Christmas and early Happy New Year to all of you! We had a great few days in Richmond with our families. My family seems to be growing every second while Scott's is kind of shrinking. As far back as I can remember, we have always drawn names for Christmas in my family; when we were all kids we drew two names but now that we're all grown up we've created a rotation so everyone gets everyone else (over the course of 10 years!) and we give family to family. Someone chooses a theme; this year my parents chose "Christmas without a paycheck." I was extra excited that my sister moved back from Albania just in time for Christmas because it saved me some serious shipping! We finished a family project and gave it as their family present. I took some pictures before we gave it away. It turned out pretty darn cute. Scott stained the wood, I cut out all the felt and we glued everything together for Family Home Evening a couple weeks back.

The kids did a really good job (except for Bubba - he was determined to make that last wise man by himself and had all his pieces glued just any old place on the block and would not let me touch it. I had to distact him before it all dried and fix it). And it kinda makes me want one of my own, but then my SIL gave me this cool "Knitivity" book of knitted nativity figures, so I just might work on that for next year. Have I mentioned I love nativity scenes?

We did our usual routines for Christmas Eve and Christmas Days:

Christmas Eve breakfast with Scott's parents and sister then we all exchange gifts with each other.

Over to my parents' house where the kids play outside for hours at a time while the grownups wrap, clean and cook.





Christmas Eve festivities: eat, sing all the Santa Claus Christmas songs, act out "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" sing all the baby Jesus Christmas songs, ending with Silent Night in English, then German, and finally act out the Nativity story while Dad reads it from the Bible. Then we all get to open one present, my kids always open pajamas and a book so they can get right into their jammies and go to bed when we get home (home being Scott's parents house in this case).

At home we write notes to Santa, leave him cookies and milk, and this year Silly had some reindeer food he wanted to put on a plate outside next to the chimney, because that's where they would land, then off to bed.

Scott and I go back to my family's houses where the girls fill stockings and the boys string the string presents. We had a new-comer to the stringing this year, and we neglected to give him sufficient guidance, so his strings were a little out of control (maybe a lot out of control) but sure fun to watch.

Once that's done it is back home to put all the presents under the tree while the kids are asleep.

This year they woke up at 5:15; there have definitely been years when Scott and I were up that early, just waiting and waiting for them to wake up. We open all the presents, play for a bit, then head over to my brother's house for stockings and breakfast.

Cakes reading Santa's answer to her note

Nerf gun! Scott has been begging me to let him get Silly a Nerf gun for ages, I finally gave in, even though he isn't six yet.

 

 

Next, across the street to Mamie and Papop's house to open more presents.

 

Usually after that, we go to Scott's mom's family gathering for lunch, but that didn't happen this year, so it was just lunch with his family, then lastly, back over to my M&D for clam chowder, crab legs and mud pie.

And that is Christmas for us. A little crazy, huh? For the last many years Scott and I have ended up at the very least annoyed with each other, at the worst having a major fight over some little Christmas Eve detail, so this year I wrote everything down as detailed as I possibly could, made him sign it, and included that he was not allowed to ask me any questions other than what time something starts or ends and whether or not the plan has changed. He refered to it as a gag order, which might not have been too far from the truth, but it worked! He did admit that he appreciated having everything written down, but he didn't like signing it. I'll make some adjustments for next year.

Oh, I almost forgot all the hilarious things Silly said:

I know where Frosty lives - Winter Wonderland!

For Santa, is it just December where you have to be good, or is it all year?

In the car on the way to Richmond I was listening to Wicked, after Defying Gravity, he asked, "Is that a Christmas song?" Not so much.

And one from Bubba - we gave him this little kid version of the Millenium Falcon complete with all the characters, all the good guys at least. He kept talking about an angel, asking where his angel was, we finally figured out he meant Yoda! Hey, he's got a robe on, right?