Christmas Revisited

Over the past two weeks, I've composed many a blog post ... in my mind. Sadly, they failed to ever materialize. But, I did want to recap our Christmas experience, even if it is only for the purpose of returning some day to see what went on.

I'm not a very good manager of my time. I had great intentions for the holidays, but most of them went the way of my mental blog posts. I had wanted to bake cookies with the boys. We only managed to do those easy pretzel-Hershey's kiss - M&M kind. However, the little boys always have fun making those and we switched out Reese's peanut butter cups for the kisses on some and liked those ones even better.

I also wanted to make our own advent calendar. We made a list of fun treats (activities, trips, games) for all 24 days. That was as far as we got. In the end, I purchased a half-price chocolate filled one a few days into December and had the little boys alternate the days. Even today, they were chiming, "No, wait - you're odds and I'm evens!" I'm not sure why they were bringing it up. I can guarantee I wasn't passing any candy out to them today (three chocolate milk spills on the carpeting - thankfully, the dog licked up the last one, but I will still need to get the spot bot out tomorrow and clean the area).

I tried for weeks to get a decent family pose so that we could actually order Christmas cards and send them out. (I have discovered that every year here in Indiana, I receive fewer cards. It makes me sad. It also makes me determined to keep sending mine out, in the hopes that others will still think of me and send their ... ahem ... beautiful family photos.) This was the best I could do.



I tried to take care of the red-eye issue and ended up with a pose covered in green spots around our eyes.


Lovely, don't you think? Maybe, like the blinking under my shirt, people would merely think we were trying to be festive! HA!

But, even with all the intentions that fell by the wayside, we still would say that it was one of our better Christmases. (Oh, the stories I could tell of Christmases past ... ill with a parasite, ill and trapped at someone else's home, the year when everything required batteries we didn't have or didn't work as the box touted and none of the boys were happy with their gifts and hubby accidentally put the handle on the brand new wagon upside down ... Christmas JOY!)

Each of the boys were receiving one gift that was difficult to wrap, so I put them together and left them out around the tree. This turned out to be a real blessing, because they had something to play with immediately. I was so fortunate this year to find a wonderful bargain on second hand toys. Another mother at the boy's preschool sold several of the toys her sons no longer played with. Thus, I scored a Step 2 mini-golf course for MS for only $15 and the Geo Trax Grand Central Station for YS for only $20. They were beyond thrilled.





While we were sad that my father-in-law had to spend Christmas day in the hospital, it was a blessing that he didn't have to meet or experience our immense dog. Most of the visit at our in-law's house seemed to include feeling sad that the dog was trapped on the cold porch, then bringing her in and feeling angry that the dog peed on others in his excitement or bounded up, knocking them down, or tried to jump on Cocoa (another family's dog that weighs only a few pounds compared to Harley's 58 pounds). The cousins had great fun playing together and hanging out. We were blessed with ample amounts of good food and sweets (something I can take no credit for, since I am hopeless in the kitchen, especially when it comes to feeding large groups).

The day after Christmas, I drove back with ES and began attempting to whip our house into shape. I'm not sure I was successful enough (since I only had a few hours that evening and a few hours the following morning, before hubby returned with the little whirling dervishes we call MS and YS, here in blog-land). I tried to solicit the help of ES. What a laugh. I asked him to wash the windows. When he finished, they looked smudged and streaky (I suppose that is better than the zillion finger and hand-prints), and I discovered almost an entire roll of paper towels crumpled up in the trash. An. entire. roll????

What a wonderful blessing that we had a kennel appointment for Harley. I dashed off to the kennel and the grocery store on the Monday morning following Christmas and by lunchtime, guests from my side of the family began to arrive. Sadly, my sister called to say that they had chosen to remain at home and spend some time as a family there. I knew her kids would have enjoyed the snow and sledding with cousins (since they have primarily lived in the deep south and only recently moved to Virginia), but understood that they needed time with their kids (they are Salvation Army officers and had barely seen their kids during the previous four or five weeks).

Next, my older brother, Mark, called to say that their youngest daughter had been up all night with the stomach flu. I think he felt really torn. He wanted to come with their sons, but we were all really paranoid about getting sick. My older brother is due to leave for a ten-week course in London any day now. Plus, my retired parents headed up the Salvation Army kettle campaign at a corps in Florida, so their resistances were certainly low. We all missed seeing them, but were grateful that the visit didn't include illness.

We had a wonderful visit together. One of the highlights was a little surprise. My cousin Karin wanted to come visit, along with her husband and son, and we decided to make it a special surprise for everyone else. What a wonderful time we had sitting around the table and talking and then opening gifts together. We hadn't seen Karin for almost 15 years, and had never met her husband and son. She's such a blessing, with the sweetest, giving personality.

Karin's son, Mike, is also a drumming enthusiast, so everyone had a great time listening to my ES jamming on the drums downstairs (pardon the mess behind him - garage sale fodder piled high). Plus, the kids all enjoyed playing Rock Band together and building with the Magnatiles. Then there was the sledding - loads of fun. I only wish it could have lasted longer. Thankfully, we're already talking about future visits. I can't begin to express how much I need these times with family. The little boys continue to rave, daily, about the clothes and toys their cousins passed on to them. I'm hoping some of us can get together again this summer .