Since Jeff is now the children's choir director at church, we had a commitment to be at church for the Christmas Eve service. We went to the Brown family party afterward.
Here's a picture of all the kids after the Silent Night song during the candlelight finish of the Christmas Eve Service. They were singing We Wish You a Merry Christmas.
We weren't at the Brown family party for long. Jules got to open her presents, we said hi to everybody and then we were off. Even at that, we didn't get home until 9:30pm. Jules was cranky and didn't want to read a book (Mommy was hoping for The Night Before Christmas.) or leave cookies out or anything. Santa's going to think we're scrooges!
We're going to have to figure out something that works for our family. The Brown Shindig is notoriously a late event. I'd like Jules to have some "home" Christmas Eve traditions... but we have 362 days to figure something out. No pressure.
Santa came:
He brought Jules the Care Bear, a computer game, a big magna doodle, and dominoes.
I think she got 4 baby dolls from various sources, not to mention 4 stuffed animals that are her size and even more smaller stuffed animals. The kid is not hurting for toys... and Santa knew that.
Jeff and I got each other new couches for Christmas, and we got great gifts from our parents and Ben. This Christmas was pretty much all about Jules.
Jules helped Uncle Ben stir the eggs for Christmas breakfast... and then she ate a TON of them.
The casseroles were a hit. (Although, I had very little to do with that. It's nice having a husband and brother in law who love to cook.) And thanks Mom for the addition of the wonderful potato soup!
The night ended with a hot game of trivial pursuit with all five (that's right - all five were at our house at once!) siblings duking it out!
Left to right - Jenn, Ben, Cory, Craig (Jenn's husband), Jerry and Jeff
Friday, we decided that since Emily passed away last week, Mario needed a playmate. I picked out this little buddy at the Humane Society. We've named him Ralphie, in honor of the goofy kid on The Christmas Story. He's very calm but still likes to play with Mario. He's a terrier mix with brindle coloring and a white belly as well as a few other white markings. He has big floppy ears and many times, one sticks up while the other flops... like this picture.
3 comments:
what a special Christmas!
WOW, looks like santa was good to the young family this year. What special times. Merry Christmas and have a healthy safe new year.
We had a tough time this year with wanting to start our own traditions with our kids. Normally Brian's mom and sister and her husband would come stay the night with us on Christmas Eve so we'd all be together first thing Christmas morning, but Brian's mom built a new 2300 sq ft house and she assummed that we would all now spend the night up there at her house, but Brian and I wanted our kids to be in thier own beds in thier own house on Christmas Eve and that we would be home no later than 7pm to do our own thing as a family. She asked us up until that day if we had convinced ourselves to change our minds, but we stuck to it. I felt bad, but I felt we needed our own traditions just the 4 of us.
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