Christmas 2005

What a wonderful day! Max and I got up at 6:00 and were on the road after picking up yet more gifts at Insty-Prints by 6:30. It was dark and there weren't a lot of people on the road at that hour, so we made really good time. We got to Firth about 7:45 and everyone ... but Emma ... was up. She got up soon, though. It's Christmas! We waited for Carol and Tony to show up - and when they did, we filled the tree up. Jim and Janet had filled it, followed by Dad and Priscilla's gifts - which came in Friday night. Then Max and I brought our carload of gifts in and when Carol and Tony got there - we were finally out of control!

We got ourselves settled in - with caffeine in hand for the adults - and the elves (Carol and Emma) began their annual distribution of gifts.

Chaos soon reigned and gifts were being opened all around the room. What fun we all had!

Jim and Janet had been working hard on breakfast goodies - and we filled up on some wonderful food. And the day progressed.

But, I think everyone had a really good time. Matthew got a PDA, Jacob got a portable DVD player, Janet got a gorgeous ring from her husband, Emma got a ring from her dad as well as a fun dancing pad for the XBox. Max got some cool new shirts from Jim & Janet (Jim always buys him the best clothes!) and I got the Aslan lion from my husband. Ok, I got a ton of other great things - a new iron, a crock pot, a new shirt from Carol, some DVDs, the list was too huge! Ariana got a bunch of princess things and Polly Pockets. I have decided that Mattel hires too many children to tie nasty little tie things on their packaging. Janet, Carol and I spent the entire day (ok, I exaggerate) unwrapping more twist ties, cutting apart nuclear protection packaging and pulling apart small pieces from her gifts.

There were a few sentimental things given. Max likes his sentiment. He gave me an Operation Game - another in the list of things I hadn't gotten as a child (I got an Easy Bake Oven in 2003 and a Lite Brite set in 2004). And after hearing a story about how Carol had completely overdone it as a small child with Hershey chocolate, he had to make sure that she had plenty of chocolate.

One of Mom's traditions when we were children was to put an overstuffed Christmas stocking on the feet of our beds after we had fallen asleep. I know now that she was hoping for an extra bit of sleep in the morning, but it was a lot of fun to wake up to that stocking. There was always a large Hershey bar in the stocking - I remember that it was about a 1# bar. Carol managed to eat her entire chocolate bar before coming down for presents and promptly threw it all up. Poor thing!

Max decided that he needed to replace that bar for her - so, we went to Hershey's website and found a 5# bar to purchase. It was sold out and we had to look a little further for this 3# bar. How fun!

We finally got everything unwrapped and people began playing with their various items, reading books that had come to them and trying to take naps. Dad and Priscilla had to get to the airport for a flight out to Denver, and Tony got to take them to the airport

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Dinner happened again about 4:15 - turkey, mashed potatoes, Jim's famous gravy, rolls and ended with Max's pecan pie. Yummy! But, I could barely move. We left about 7:45 - in a very deep fog (the weather, not the mind - though the food totally messed with me) and got home about 9:15. Max and I unpacked the car and watched some fun DVDs. I had found some fun things at Target - in the dollar spot. The Ozzie and Harriet Show, The Rifleman, and some others. But, since it had been a very long weekend - I was sound asleep by 10:45.

Another family Christmas has come and gone and I'm so grateful for my family and the love that we share for each other!