Christmas 2012

Boy, was Christmas really 2 weeks ago already? Let's see if I remember how things went...

Christmas Eve day we drove to Mike's aunt and uncle's house to celebrate Mike's grandpa's 92nd birthday. We hadn't been there since Jake was born, so it was nice to see Mike's grandparents, 2 aunts, and uncle again, as well as Kevin, Cynthia, and Katherine. It was tricky to go there with Jake. It's a little more than an hour away, and Jake still naps twice a day but does not sleep in the car- never has, and we wanted to make sure he got good sleep in so he'd be a good boy in church that evening. We were able to have him take a short nap at home that morning before heading down, and we got home just in time for Jake and Drew's afternoon naps.

Our church had services on Christmas Eve at 11, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11. Really, none of those times are great for us at this point in Jake's life. Given the length of the church service and the time required for parking and getting seats together, all services basically run into nap/bedtime or mealtime. So we opted to go at 5:00, and Mike's mom volunteered to usher at that service so she would be able to save us seats, which is always a huge help. Between all the services on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, there were over 26,000 people in attendance. Wow. Anyway, the service on Christmas Eve was amazing, as usual, but longer than tolerable for a one year-old. Even with the dinner I packed for him to eat throughout, Jake got pretty antsy by the end. I look forward to 2 years from now, when I think going to church will finally be pretty easy again.

After church we were all starving, and it was almost 7:00, so we picked up some Arby's and ate pretty quickly before getting Jake in bed. Then Zach, Drew, and I decorated some cookies. Yes, I'm in my pajamas already in this picture.

I had to say more than a couple of times, "No, Drew! You can't eat the sprinkles right out of the bottle!" or "No, Drew! You can't lick that knife and put it back in the frosting, even if Aunt Becky and Aunt Sandy do that!" Ok, my sisters don't really do that, but they do love the frosting. Personally, I'm more about the sprinkles.

Once the cookies were all decorated, it was definitely past bedtime, but we'd had such a fun time that we didn't mind. We picked a couple of cookies to leave for Santa, and the boys said goodbye to Herky, our elf, who was sitting up on our tree for his last night.

Once the boys were in bed, we got the soufflé and caramel rolls for the next day's breakfast made up, and when we felt sure the boys were sound asleep, we got to work on filling stockings. The stockings are too heavy for the stocking holders once they have anything in them, so we had to just lay them on the ground by the fireplace.

We did pretty good as far as getting things done in a timely manner and the next thing we knew, it was Christmas morning. Zach and Drew had had a sleepover in Drew's room, and I had set their clock back 15 minutes so that I'd have time to get up and nurse Jake and change his diaper before they actually got out of bed at 7:00 (or 7:15, really). It worked perfectly. They were excited to check out their stockings. We got a picture of Drew with the cars he asked Santa for, but somehow we did not get a single picture of Zach with his AT-AT Walker, which was what he had asked for. I think we got video of him opening that, but I'm feeling too lazy to attempt uploading it right now.

We had a nice, lazy morning. Curt and Linda stopped by for a few minutes to see the kids' gifts before heading to Curt's family's Christmas celebration. It was such a gorgeous day that after breakfast I went for a run outside, and later on Mike went out and golfed 9 holes. Who would think those 2 things were possible here on Dec. 25th?!

That evening Kevin, Cynthia, Katherine, and Sam came over to celebrate with us. We had homemade pizza (a new Christmas tradition, maybe?), Christmas cookies, and opened gifts.

Once the kids were all in bed, we 6 adults sat at the table and played Taboo. It was lots of fun, and my college friends will be pleased to know that though the group may have changed, the results didn't- the women won easily. And the guys could NOT claim that it was because we were sober and they weren't, as none of us were drinking.

It was a very lovely Christmas, and we were happy to not be traveling and to have a chance to share parts of it with some family.