Christmas for us

Here's how our Christmas went down.  Remember I was sick sick sick with the flu just a few days before?  Well...  we couldn't cancel Christmas.  Though I was really beginning to wonder if I would feel up to it.  However, by Christmas Eve I was a little better and by Christmas Day I was almost back to normal - still a little worn out from it all, but not too bad.

So we went to church Christmas Eve to candlelight service of course.  I hung in there barely.

I love that my kid does this in church....

Then we came home and "made" (pre-made was all I was up to) cookies for Santa and made a (from the box) cake for Jesus' birthday the next day.  The girls said goodbye to Chris and went to bed relatively easy.

Brooke is 8 this year.  I had my doubts if she still believed.  She wasn't saying anything about it.  No questions.  No nothing.  I couldn't figure out if it was because she didn't want to stir the pot or because she legitimately didn't have any questions or thoughts about it.

But lo and behold, night before, she left a note to Santa.  And she didn't make it known.  She thought she was sneaky and got it in without us seeing.  Even kinda hid it.  But the note said something like..."Dear Santa, but I know I've been kinda bad sometimes, but I still really want x, y, and z....."  Um, too late kid?  Geez!  Wait till night before Christmas?  So Santa was sure to write her back and tell her 'sorry...I got you this but didn't know about this until too late and don't worry, you're a good kid!'

So moral of the story - she still believes.  :)

Anyway, first things first...right after girls wake us up (which was extremely early of course - but I mean....like REALLY early), we sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and eat cake for breakfast.

Then we allow the presents to happen.  The girls wanted to open Santa presents first and so they did.  We make them go slow to stretch out our morning and enjoy it all.  One present at a time, we all watch what everyone else got.  I love my family.  :)

Then we did stockings - always fun.

And presents for the grown ups too...

Then we had some time to 'play' and sort and look at all the great things that we were blessed with.

But before long it was time to clean up and get ready for lunch with the family.  Before we had always done dinner, but it made for a late night for some driving back home, it made for dragging out the day and this year we wanted to try a late lunch.  With our next floors it made moving furniture around and accommodating  all 13 of us very easy!  Instead of using our kitchen/dining area, we moved the sofas and put one big long dining table in the living room!  Then after we ate, we moved it out quickly to make everyone comfy again for presents.  It worked rather well.

Because I was still getting over the sickies, my dad did alll the cooking and food handling and preparations.  I stayed out of the kitchen.  Normally I help do sides and such, but not this year.  I didn't want people to be afraid to eat with me handling their food.  

Of course the food was delicious!  We had the buffet line go through the kitchen and had turkey and ham and all the fixins.  Yum!  

Quickly moving on from lunch, presents were passed out....

All in all, after me battling the flu so severely, we ended up having a great Christmas.  So incredibly blessed to have family and friends and good health to enjoy it with.