Christmas 2012

This year Christmas fell on a Tuesday. We spent the day on Friday travelling down to our usual Christmas destination in Alabama. Both kids were sick and Etta even started running a fever sometime during the trip down and I was thankful that I had packed the Tylenol. We arrived late Friday afternoon. My sister, Deanne, and her husband, Todd, had already arrived a couple of hours before us. We spent the evening visiting and taking it easy.

Saturday morning, my mom and I went to take Ferris while Keith stayed behind with the kids. After we left the vet and pulled ourselves together, my mom and I ran a couple of errands that needed to be run while we were "in town". I don't really remember much of that afternoon, but it probably involved keeping the large kitchen knives out of Daniel's hands and picking up all of those coffee mugs, wine glasses, and beer bottles that were teetering on the edges of tables... Later on Saturday afternoon, my aunt and cousin arrived. Since the first wave of people would be leaving again the next day, we had a nice "Christmas dinner" with them that night. After dinner, Keith and I decided to go ahead with the gender reveal since this was the night with the largest crowd of family (we had planned to do this on Christmas morning, but half of the family would not be there this year).

Deanne and Todd left on Sunday morning to spend Christmas with his family in South Carolina. We took it easy that morning and we played Dirty Santa. We usually do this on Christmas Eve, but, as I already said, the family was coming in two waves this year. So, we did the first round on Sunday. Our family always wraps the Dirty Santa gifts in brown paper grocery bags (or craft paper) as a nod to my Papa who always wrapped his gifts in paper bags with a piece of curling ribbon tied around the top (there was usually food inside the bag. Like, an orange and a jar of apple butter).

After Dirty Santa, we played a new game. The players sit around in a circle and take turns throwing dice. When someone lands on doubles, they get to put on the silly Santa antenna and the oven mitts and try to open a present. While the person is trying to open the present, the rest of the players are frantically taking turns throwing the dice trying to get doubles. When the next person gets doubles, the present and oven mitts are passed to them. This game goes on and the gift gets passed around (in various stages of unwrap) until someone finishes opening the gift and is holding the prize in their hands. The game sounded sort of silly at first, but it turns into a lot of fun as the dice get passed around more and more quickly and the person with the oven mitts paws at the gift. lol.

Before they left, Tammie and Jeanne gave the kids the gifts they had brought for them. Etta got a Furby. She loved this thing! This mama's not so sure about it. Haha. It was really sweet and happy when we first turned it on, but lately, it has been angry. The thing is loud and it speaks "Furbish" so I don't even know what it wants. So, I'm keep rubbing it, tickling it, bouncing it, and sticking my finger in its mouth to feed it, but it's still pissed off. So, we mostly let it sleep.

Monday morning, Christmas Eve, my Mom and Bill and I went to the mall to volunteer with some other members from our local synagogue at the gift wrapping station. All of the proceeds go to the House of Ruth, a local non-profit that benefits women who have been victims of domestic violence or sexual assault. We do this every Christmas Eve. The idea is that the Jews in the community take over as volunteers in the booth on Christmas Eve so that our Christian friends can take the day off.  It's one of my favorite traditions (even if I really wanted to sleep in that morning because the kids didn't sleep well the night before). We were signed up for a two hour shift, but stayed an extra hour to help cover a couple people who needed to leave unexpectedly.

We decided to leave around noon when the next wave of volunteers showed up to take over. We were going to go on home, but the sky opened up and it began POURING, so we thought it might be a good idea to just grab lunch in the food court and see if the rain let up. So we did and it did. After lunch, Mom and Pops went to deliver a few gifts to their friends and I headed home (Well, I made a stop at K-Mart on the way to get Dirty Santa gifts for round two. THEN I headed home.).

That night, Keith made his annual "Christmas Eve Chili" and Mom and Pops went to church and my sister, Kimi came into town and went straight to the church to join them and my step-brother, Adam and his wife, Kim arrived. After we got the kids in bed, we had dinner, and all of Santa's Helpers got to work! I actually got to bed by midnight this year because we had so many helpers (usually it's just me and my mom and we're up until 3:00 am getting everything done)!

Daniel was up pretty early on Christmas morning (he was up early every morning we were there) and Keith was awesome and took him downstairs to the living room until Etta got up around 7:30. Then, Keith brought D back upstairs while we waited for my mom and sister to help get Nana up (so she could participate in the Christmas morning excitement- She usually sleeps until at least 10:00am... sometimes close to noon...).

Once ALL THE PEOPLE were ready for us to come back down, we did! Etta was so cute because she saw all of the new toys that Santa brought, but she bypassed them to hug her Nana first (my mom. There are lots of "Nana"s around there!).

We spent some time playing with all of the gifts Santa brought before Daniel needed to go down for his morning nap. We moved on to brunch and slowly opened a few gifts throughout the morning. Daniel was up again about an hour later and we let the kids finish opening their presents.

I think this is probably my favorite gift that Etta got this year! It's a Handy Dandy Notebook from Blues Clues!! She knew EXACTLY what it was when she opened it and she stuck the fat crayon in the spiral and took off looking for "coos" (clues)! (This gift *almost* didn't arrive in time to give it to her for Christmas, but I'm so glad it did!)

I had a sketch framed for Keith that his Uncle Stanley drew of him on one of their hiking trips not too long ago. (This has extra special meaning since his Uncle Stanley lost his battle with lung cancer earlier in November)

When it was time for Etta to take her nap, I decided to go ahead and lay down with her for a bit. I heard Keith come in the room about an hour later to put Daniel down for his afternoon nap, and I should have gone ahead and gotten up, but it felt so good to sleep and I closed my eyes again. In the end I got to take about a two-and-a-half hour nap, which was awesome, but I slept through Adam's kids arriving and opening all of their gifts.

I was happy that we woke up just in time to play Round Two of Dirty Santa AND Round Two of the oven mitt game!

Adam's wife, Kim is also pregnant! She is due about 4 weeks after me. They are having a boy.

After Kessler won the big prize, Adam and his family got on the road back home in anticipation of the severe weather headed our way. Then, one by one, the rest of us headed off to bed. Well, not me. I took a crazy long nap that day and I didn't get to bed until pretty late. I went to bed hoping Daniel would sleep past 6:00 since we had a long day of driving ahead of us. He woke up at 4:43 in the AM!!! GAH! I was so sleepy I could cry! (Actually, I may have cried!). He was noisy enough that it woke Etta up too (we were all sleeping in the same room). I took D downstairs and gave him a bottle. Keith came down a little while later suggesting that we just go ahead and pack up and get on the road. Uhhhhh..... So, we had some early morning tension and I spent about 45 minutes packing all of the gifts that were strewn about the downstairs while we decided what the best thing to do was. Daniel was getting fussy just before 6:00 and we decided to try to put him back in bed and see if we could all go back to sleep for a bit. He did and we did!

He woke up again a little after 7:00, but Etta was still sleeping and I was still exhausted so I handed the baby to Keith and went back to bed until Etta got up around 8:00. By the time we got packed and loaded, we were pulling out of their driveway at about 10:00 (or was it 10:30? I really don't remember). This is a *little* late for us. We generally like to leave by 9:00 because the drive is just SO long now that we have kids and need to make several stops along the way (and fussy Daniel isn't the best traveler), but the extra sleep that morning was SO worth it! We made it back home around 5:30 and the kids and I didn't leave the house again until Saturday!