Although we didn’t have a white Christmas this year, we did enjoy bright sunshine and blue skies. It was a bit chilly, but not unusually cold. The Ramseys arrived on Friday and us, the Orrs and the Bruces were at Mom and Dad’s on Christmas Eve for several hours. From there, the Worleys and Orrs left for our Christmas Eve service, but first drove to the Noots to carol. The Denny family has moved out of state (Wah!) and our neighbors weren’t home, so it was just the Noots this year. In addition to being our high school choir teacher, Mrs. Noot is the sister of the well-known Wright Brothers singing group, so needless to say, it is just a little bit intimidating to sing for this particular family! But they were all very gracious and Mick pointed out later that they probably enjoy being the “audience” every now and then. We did talk them into singing a song for us, so Mrs. Noot and her brothers sang “Christmas Island,” which is a song their dad sang to them. While they were singing, I enjoyed watching their mother’s beaming face, and I imagine she was enjoying some warm Christmas memories while they sang. From there, we headed up to our church.
We put together a small children’s choir for our Christmas Eve service this year, and they sang “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” Kelly accompanied them, which meant I was the “choir director,” which means, I sit in the front pew and mouth the words while trying to get them to smile. It didn’t hit me until just before the kids sang that I would be holding Trent on my lap while trying to lead the singing. Trent, who rarely, if ever, makes it through an entire worship service. Trent, the nursing wonder, who associates my sitting down with his nursing opportunity. I glanced down at Mick, who was at the other end of the pew with Grant on his lap and ruled him out as a possibility. Images of me having to suddenly get up during the kids’ song and race out with a howling baby went racing through my mind. But, in the end, he actually did very well. He stood on my lap facing the kids (I was sitting in the front row) and only got a little loud twice.
Afterwards, we stopped by “the blue house” on the way home, which is a house a mile or so from church with thousands of lights that are synchronized to music we can listen to on an FM station. Then, we came home and got everybody to bed within an hour or so.
The gift I was most excited about was a Keurig for Mick. I also got him a box of coffee pods and a box of hot chocolate pods for the rest of us! I could tell by his reaction that he was not expecting this gift, so it was fun to be able to surprise him with it. I think he has used it every morning since then.
Christmas morning was a little trickier this year due to it falling on a Sunday. Dresses and tights had been set out the night before, and Rachel and I had decided ahead of time to put buns in the girls’ hair, since it is quick and simple, and we’re used to doing it in a rush, thanks to ballet practices. Somehow, we managed to open all the gifts (without rushing the kids along too much), eat a nice breakfast, and make it to church just in the nick of time.
On the way down to Mom and Dad’s, I read more of “A Christmas Carol” to the girls – a tradition that we’ve been enjoying the past few years. I’m still not quite done with it, but am planning on finishing it when we head back down to Mom and Dad’s on New Year’s Day.
The rest of the day was a happy blur of more gifts, overflowing plates, the game “Family”, and lots of laughing – especially when we tried, unsuccessfully, to get a family picture. We were (almost) all there for several hours (Glenn was helping to serve a meal at an inner-city church), but corralling everyone and getting the proper angle and lighting for the camera, finding just the right spot (front porch? living room? stairs?), etc., just proved to be too much for us and some of the families had to leave early to head over to inlaws’ houses. Oh well - maybe next year!
The kids still haven’t beat us up on Christmas morning yet. Here they are at about 7:30, waiting for the green light to come downstairs. Grant is clearly uninterested at this point. LOL!
Grant opening his first gift. Maybe there’s something to this after all, he thinks.
Claire reading her book
Sarah waits for the others to join her at the breakfast table. We had Egg Soufflé, bacon, blueberries and blackberries, and a breakfast danish.
This strawberry tree recipe came from a blog Kelly directed me to. Projects like this rarely work out for me, so I was pleasantly surprised that it looked so nice! The only thing I would’ve changed about it was, the chocolate didn’t stick to the strawberries when they were pulled off and eaten, but I suppose we had enough chocolate in the other desserts to make up for that. ;-)
Luke reads his portion of Luke 2
'
If someone could tell us how to coordinate gift-opening on Christmas for 43 people, we’d greatly appreciate it!
Mom thanks Luke for his hand-carved gift.
Grant gets his first Nerf gun from the Mozingos!
Rachel enjoying an e-book on her new Nook.
Someone is happy with her new dolls. :-)
