Christmas Recap

Our Christmas celebration began on Christmas Eve with a candle lit service at our Church. Joycie was quite thru the first few moments of the service, but began to get sleepy and fussy so I opted to take her into the nursery. I sat in the darkened nursery rocking her and singing Christmas hymns to her. My mind thought about Mary, and that long ago Christmas Eve as she prepared for the arrival of her son. It was a beautiful moment and a cherished memeory of the holiday.

On Christmas morning, Joycie was wide awake by 8 a.m. M fed her a bottle while I called both sets of grandparents to let them know that they could come over to watch Joycie unwrap her gifts. Joycie had little interest in unwrapping her gifts, which was suprising since she had been trying to tear into the wrapping paper all week long. After lots of encouragement from Daddy, she managed to get her presents unwrapped. The picture above is her excited face as she plays with her stacking rings.

After Joycie unwrapped her presents, M and I exchanged our gifts. I was tickled pink at how excited he was over the new WII game that I bought him. However, his excitement was nothing compared to mine, when I unwrapped my gifts. He began by giving me a box, than contained a flour shifter.

I was a little perplexed, but thought that there had to be a purpose to his gift. So I eagerly unwrapped the next two packages and discovered a bottle of vanilla flavoring, and a can of baking powder. I sat there stunned as I realized that M had bought me a stand mixer. M said that he was worried that I did not like the gift.....but I assured him that I was just so blown away that I had to fight tears. Once I got it together, I tore into my box, and soon had my shiny new toy on the kitchen counter.

Once we were finished with our gift exchange, we went to M's brother's for Christmas breakfast. Joycie managed to find her way into a leftover box.....and was entertained for quite awhile.

We exchanged gifts with my parents, sister, brother-in-law and nephews/niece at 11:30. With 4 kids all under 5 trying to open presents, it was chaos to say the very least. However, it was so much fun watching them get excited over each item. When the presents were all unwrapped, we snapped family photos in front of my parents tree and then headed to M's parents for Christmas lunch. At M's parents, more presents were unwrapped, lots of good food was eaten, and laughs were shared. Our Christmas festitvites ended with a Christmas supper at my parents home....followed by M playing his new game, Ghost Hunter. The excitement of the day wore Joycie out and she was tucked into bed by 8:30.

Did you have a wonderful Christmas?