Our holiday

We had three Christmas celebrations this year.  We had one with Grandma Boos, who decided to head to Chicago this season for the big day, one with Rusty and family, who decided to finally spend the big day at home for the first time ever, and one on the big day with the usual suspects.  Three Christmases just triples the fun!

Christmas with Grandma Boos:

We and Tom's sister, Julie and family, all headed to Grandma's new townhouse for a Christmas celebration.  Mary Anne always has her place decorated to the hilt with beautiful Christmas charm and she had really done a beautiful job on her mantel, which for some reason I didn't photograph, but you can sort of see in the background of this picture.

We had a beef dinner with veggies and a salad, followed by Grandma's homemade spritz cookies in colors of red and green.  She also had mini peppermint cupcakes which the children devoured in minutes.  We opened gifts in the living room.  Having a three year old among us was a joy to watch.  Brea, Julie's daughter, got a Christmas blanket from Grandma and spent the rest of the evening having the best time with this blanket.  She walked around with it on her head.  She crumbled it into her arms and lay on the floor sucking her thumb.  She and Madison spent tons of time rolling the blanket and unrolling the blanket.  She asked to be covered with the blanket.  When her brother also received a blanket she could hardly control her excitement, and when I too received a blanket I thought she would keel over and die from it all.

After the Christmas celebration, we moved on to celebrating Julie's son's birthday.  He was born the day after Christmas and so we brought his gift for him to open.  He enjoyed it much more then his blanket, as the girls picked out a Nerf gun with the capability of shutting multiple bullets.  This is a big activity for all of the cousins when they are together....attacking one another with Nerf guns.

We ended the night by Skyp-ing Aunt Beth on the web cam we got Grandma Boos.  It was a nice get together, made even nicer by the gift I received from Mary Anne....money to travel to Pittsburgh to see a Steelers game! Whoo Hoo!

Christmas with Rusty & Family:

Each year Rusty and family are gone for the holidays.  Most of the time they are in Evansville with Susan's family, and last year they were here for Christmas, and so they promised their children that this year they would have Christmas day at home.  So they came the days before the holiday to spend time with Grandma Connie and us.  The night before they left we all went to Grandma Connie's condo to have Christmas.

Susan, Kelly and I cooked up a big batch of tacos and rice which we scarfed down in record time.  Grandma held court in our way, she in her wheelchair directing from behind us no matter where we stood.

We opened presents later in the evening before we ate cupcakes for dessert.  We got Grandma a web cam so that she could chat with Rusty and clan, if she ever makes it back to her computer.  She in turn handed out monetary gifts and little gifts purchased by me in her behalf.  I said I felt a little like my Aunt Lorene, who had the job of Christmas shopping for her father, my grandfather, each year.  She always got the greatest gifts for me from my grandfather.

It was a nice time as Grandma felt decent.  The mood was cheery and the minimal decorations were warming.  We only wished they could have stayed for the real holiday!

Christmas at home:

For the most part we are always home for Christmas morning.  When mother had the house in IN we were there every other year, but since she sold it we have been at home for the big Santa reveal.  Our tradition is for Kelly to spend the night on Christmas Eve.  This year Darcy and I accompanied her to a candlelight service at her church where we sang and sang and listened to the story of Jesus' birth.  The congregation holding all of the candles and singing Silent Night aloud choked me up.  We all hated to extinguish them.

Christmas morning Darcy is up before the birds.  She is a huge believer in the man in the red suit, and he did not disappoint her this year.  She gets up Madison and Kelly and they check out the Santa gifts under the tree.  At seven Darcy wakes me up, and Tom and I drag ourselves out of bed and join them.

Usually Grandma arrives early and we dig into the stockings and presents, but this year we agreed to let her get ready slowly and pick her up later.  That meant we had to wait on the gifts, but we decided to go through our stockings first.  Elliot was first.  Santa brought him some treats and a play toy.  He enjoyed, however, the football that Santa put in Tom's stocking.

There was a slight hitch in getting Grandma, but we finally got her back to the house at about noon.  Kelly and I had made mimosas and breakfast and so we chowed down on that before gathering around the tree for hours of unwrapping.

 Elliot put up with it all, even getting into the spirit of things.  He enjoyed his presents from the neighbors, the cousins, and the family.  But he seemed to enjoy barking at things outside or Grandma's oxygen tank the most.  He slept very well last night.

 We ended the day with a fabulous meal prepared by Kelly.  That shall be tomorrow's blog because I took a lot of photos and because it gives me something else to blog about.  So I shall leave you all with this photo of us gathered around the table, Connie in her chair, ready to dig into the Christmas feast.

A fine Christmas...all three of them!