Christmas 2010

Christmas Eve

Since Christmas was on a Saturday this year, Dode got 1/2 of Thursday and all day Friday off.  You'd think that would make Christmas feel nice and leisurely but for some reason, I was flat out exhausted this year.  I don't know why, it was the same number of kids, the same number of parties, but for some reason, by the time we went to bed on Christmas eve, I was tired beyond words.

We had a surprise visit from Anastaya and William's Grandpa Mecham on Christmas eve which was a delightful gift for Anastaya.  She was able to cuddle up to him and play him some of the Christmas songs on the piano she's been working so hard at.  For dinner, we had homemade lasagna (which I never make because the ingredients are so expensive) but I love. 

Christmas Day

Are you wondering how the book surprise went?  I woke up in the middle of the night and snuck the books into every one's bed.  I had to disarm the motion sensor in Isaac's room, which woke him up.  He knew I was up to something but was unsure what exactly.  Miriam found her present when she woke up, as did Isaac and William.  But, they weren't sure what was going on so they didn't open them.  When I told them it was ok to open them, they were pleased.  The girls spent about 20 minutes looking through their room for their gifts before they found them.  A little later, Jacob said, what about me?  He'd been half asleep when he rolled out of bed at 9:00 and had totally missed it!  As we were talking about the books later, Miriam said to me, "Next year, can you make it a toy?"

Dode and I worked on getting breakfast going while the kids opened and played with their stocking stuffers.  The kids had spilled something on one of the burners to such a degree that the garbage on the drip pan ignited into flames.  The fan we have over the burners is 40 years old, noisy and pretty ineffective.  As smoke billowed through the kitchen, Dode stood there with a piece of foil, trying to direct the smoke into the fan.  I informed Dode that a new fan would make a great gift.  He told me that I'd say that wasn't a very good gift if he did buy it for me for Christmas.  (It must have been Dode that purposefully added something to that burner because not 30 minutes later, I unwrapped the user manual for a new fan!)

After all the hours I spent wrapping presents, it took the kids about 30 minutes to tear through them.  Maybe next time we should prolong the torture and have them open them one at a time!  I was conflicted as we began.  When the kids look at the base of the tree, they see all the presents and think, "Oh yeah, I'm really going to make out this year!"  They forget that those gifts are divided up among six siblings plus extended family members.  Last year, it was Jacob who was left bitterly disappointed.  I figured someone else would have the experience this year.  It was Isaac.  The kids all know how much I spend on each of them and he wanted to know how much each of his gifts was so he could figure out if he got his fair share.  Oh, the joys of parenting. 

William with his new pirate boat

Miriam got an armful of webkinz

Anastaya loves doing art

Elizabeth REALLY wanted an RC helicopter

Once we were done with the unwrapping, it was time for Dode's family to join us for our annual breakfast feast.  We all ate way too much food and I heard several times that the cinnamon rolls were better than ever this year.  (I think I hear that at least once each year)  Apparently, my cinnamon rolls are so good, memory just can't do them justice! 

I received a call on Wednesday afternoon that Dode and I had been assigned to give talks in church on Sunday of 15 minutes each so each time we had a spare minute, instead of sitting and enjoying the day, we had to turn our thoughts to our talks.  I never want to say no when asked to speak.  But, after I got off the phone, I thought, "I'm hosting three separate family parties, I've got piles of gifts to wrap, I have six kids to  help with new gifts on Christmas, I'm really really busy, why not add something else to the list?"

My Mom, Greg, and my brother Matthew joined us for Christmas dinner. 

Matthew got some Chuck Norris joke books that all three boys loved reading

Miriam had been asking for a rocking horse and 12 days before Christmas, my mom and Greg decided she'd have one.  They worked tirelessly to build her this oak rocking horse that I know will become a family heirloom. 

Boma made the other kids exceptionally happy by buying them the new Xbox Kinect. Kinect is the newest tweak on gaming.  It allows you to play games without using the controller.  There is a special camera that recognizes your movements.

Matthew helped Dode install my new fan.  It was a few inches shorter than the old fan and needed some modifications.  Typical for home improvement.  We'll need to find some tiles to disguise where the old fan used to go down to.

Since Matthew and Dode were installing my fan,

I needed to be creative to get our special Christmas dinner done. 

Day After Christmas

Between Dode and I, we spent a sleepless night with one of us being awake, worrying about delivering our talk in church that would be a benefit to the listeners.  A funny thing happened when we were done.  Because the kids can't sit by themselves, we'd taken turns sitting with them while the other spoke instead of sitting on the stand together as people generaly do and having the joy of watching our children misbehave.  We'd both noticed that the gentleman sitting behind us was deeply asleep throughout the meeting.  When the meeting was over, he leaned forward and told us how much he'd enjoyed our talks.  William cried out indignantly, "You were sleeping!"  Luckily William has a speech impediment and the kind brother was talking with Dode about something so he was spared the embarrassment of being called on it.  Both Dode and I got quite a laugh out of it! 

My Dad and his wife Cheryl joined us for a nice dinner and we celebrated Christmas with them.  They took the girls home to their house for a few nights.  Dode and I drifted off to sleep with the sound of thundering feet as the boys played the Kinect.  They were doing a track and field game.  It requires them to run in place with really high knees.  It kept increasing the level of difficulty as they played so they were really working up a sweat as they tried to meet the next challenge.

The funny things kids say

Now that Christmas is over, I'll miss hearing Miriam singing...

"Away in the danger, the danger the danger" (Away in the Manger)

and

"We miss you a Merry Christmas"

And, when we set up our manger with rafia straw and a baby Jesus, Miriam said to us horrified, "They were going to feed baby Jesus to the animals!"

Digging Out

Monday morning, the house was a complete wreck.  There wasn't one room that didn't need some major digging out.  Packing up Christmas, putting new things away, picking up bits of wrapping and packaging, it made for a full day.  By the time Dode got home from work, I'd managed to get the house mostly back to order.  I love decorating the house for Christmas but there is something so satisfying to having it all put away and a nice empty room again.