The 3 Days of Christmas

Now that it's over I'm feeling in much more of a holiday spirit. LOL

Christmas Eve was spent at my parents with my sister and her family. Everyone was in a relaxed mood, (notable for my family) and we had a nice time. We atea midday meal -- the traditional kielbasa dinner--and exchanged gifts. When we arrived home we had a small prayer service--we read the bible readings for Christmas Eve and each of us said a prayer while lighting a candle. We did this in lieu of attending mass. At our church you need to arrive at least an hour early to get a seat at any of the Christmas services, and with bitter cold weather, a newborn and a very active toddler we decided not to do that, and had our own servide instead. It was very nice. Then we made a fire and had cheese, crackers and fruit in front of it, another family tradition. The kids were bed by 10pm and we commenced wrapping. I wasn't able to do too much since A. wanted to nurse the entire time, but we still finished and were in bed by midnight. D scared me when he let out a LOUD HOHOHO in the hall in case anyone was listening.

On Christmas day we woke to the sound of the kids in the kitchen (around 7:30am) making coffee for us. The family rule is that they can't get up until it it light out, thankfully fairly late in (8am) our neck of the woods. We got up, and I made banana bread real quickly, which was baking while the kids unwrapped gifts. It was our most extravagant year ever, and the kids enjoyed what they received, which included an electronic keyboard and a GPS unit so we can begin geocaching.

Around 11am D and I both began to get headaches, and we soon discovered that the kids had inadvertently made us decaf coffee! LOL So we had to make more and start over.

We had a beef rib roast, garlic mashed potatoes and a caesar salad for dinner, followed by D's "famous" (famous because he told me he made a great apple pie for the first 15 years of our marriage but never made one until then--2 years ago) homemade apple pie for dessert, and then we watched "A Christmas Story".

On Dec. 26 we had Christmas with D's family, and we stayed fairly late, arriving home at 10:30pm.

We have done a lot of socializing these holidays. On Tuesday we had old friends (a family of 4) come and spend the night, and Wednesday evening another friend came for dinner. Thursday we were invited to a party.