Christmas 2008 ~ So Far...

After a very nice Christmas Eve candlelight service at church, we made a quick stop at home and were back out the door to head to my family's celebration at the home of my parents, which is a little over an hour away from us now.

There was no need for dreaming of a white Christmas this year, there's quite a bit of that white stuff all over outside. However, inside Mom and Dad's garage on Christmas Eve, it looked much more like a red and black Christmas! The tablecloths were red, and almost everyone was wearing some combination of red and black.

There wasn't much green to be seen anywhere this year...except for the Christmas tree and the carpeting. Well, of course we had a tree and carpet in the garage! Doesn't everyone? For the past few years, my family has been converting Mom and Dad's garage into a cozy family room just for a few hours on Christmas Eve. It's a little weird I guess, but no one has a big enough living room to hold us all anymore. So it works.

This is what CJ got from one of my nephews that had picked his name. CJ LOVES Spidey! After the kids opened their presents, we had a little excitement, thanks to my 5 year old niece, Shelby. We were all out in the garage, when she ran away from her mother, into the house and locked the door! Unfortunately, all the other doors to the house were locked, and Shelby was hiding inside the house somewhere, because she knew she'd done something wrong. After a few minutes, someone had the brilliant idea to climb through the wood storage door that leads to the basement from the garage, and they got back into the house that way. Whew! Never a dull moment with Shelby around! I found that out last summer when I babysat her for a weekend.

Here's Jessica looking lovely as usual, in her Santa hat, next to my hubby, Ray who is sampling some of the delicious treats brought by everyone. We "kids" all chipped in on Mom and Dad's gifts, but unfortunatley, didn't get Mom's ordered in time to receive it by Christmas.

Here's Mom, looking a bit perplexed, as she takes this little bicycle bell out of a gift bag. Notice the green tissue paper on the table. In it, there is a photo of what we ordered for her.

We had to explain to her that there actually WAS something in the tissue paper. Here she is looking at the picture below, of her shiny new red Schwinn bicycle! She can't wait to get it!

Next, it was Dad's turn:

He got a GPS, so he'll never have to stop and ask directions, which is something I'm pretty sure he's never done in his life anyway...Well, maybe once or twice. He was pretty excited too, and played with his new toy the rest of the night.

Wee Three Kings? Well, not really, but I thought these guys were so cute, I had to get a picture of them all together. The two to the left and right of CJ are my sister Kathy's little guys, Tiegen and Grayson. Age-wise, CJ is right in the middle of them too, but it looks like Gray has passed him up in height. CJ just happened to be the only GREAT grandchild there this year.

Next, it was time for the adult gift exchange. The women each bring a gift for another woman, and the men each bring one for another guy. Ladies first, of course. We each draw a card, and the ace card chooses first and opens a gift. The next person can either choose a new gift to open, or "steal" a gift from someone who has already opened one. My sister Kathy opened 3 in a row, because they kept getting stolen from her.

I really lucked out this year. I had the highest number, so I was able to choose from all the gifts that were already opened, or open the last remaining one on the table. If I opened the last one, the game was over, so I opted to steal from my niece. I got 2 wonderful over-sized, very soft, fleece throw blankets! I had to have them! They'll come in really handy in this drafty old farmhouse. In fact, I'm snuggled up in one right now.

Now, on to Christmas morning here at home:

Here's Molly helping Bart eat his "lollipop" that he got in his stocking while Jake looks on very enviously. CJ got all kinds of neat things, like a V-motion video game, the Animal Scramble game that I won from MomCentral and various other games and toys.

He was absolutely delighted to find that Santa had left him the one thing he had asked him for. Eve! He had gotten a Wall-e robot for his birthday, and just had to have an "Eve" one, to go with it. Now they can interact and talk to each other and make all kinds of weird noises all over the house. Yay!

Here's Miss Molly, thrilled to have just opened a brand new digital camera. She was even more excited when she got it out of the box and saw that it was PINK! Now, as long as she doesn't overload the computer with pictures of herself and the two dogs...we'll be fine. Jessica got her a really nice jacket and snow pants too...you can see them to the lefthand side of her, on the couch. They'll come in handy for her trip to Deep Portage with her sixth grade class in January.

I got an apple cookie jar from Ray, along with a dozen roses that he brought home on Christmas Eve, and the two Narnia movies I wanted from Jessica, Molly and CJ. Woohoo. We watched The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" tonight. Maybe Prince Caspian tomorrow night? After a few hours of playing with all of our new stuff, I walked in the livingroom to find Ray asleep on the loveseat in his usual place....

And one little Christmased-out grandson, lying sprawled on the floor in front of the Christmas tree. I covered him up with one of my new blankets, and he slept right there for about 3 hours I think.

On Saturday, Sarah and Brad will come down from "up north" and Ruth and Dan will come up from the cities. Hopefully, Joel will make the drive east to visit us too, and we'll have ourselves a nice Christmas dinner and exchange a few more gifts. That should be fun!

Friday though, I have to go to my cousin's funeral. That doesn't sound like fun at all. They had a service for him out in Utah where he lived, and then flew him here, so the service is tomorrow.