Christmas 2011

Our busy season begins gearing up right after Thanksgiving. We begin to shut down our social calendar, just about the time everyone else begins to ramp it up. We've been through this drill for so many years, that it's just natural to us now. We doggedly work at not getting overwhelmed with parties and everything else that swallows you up during this time of year. I try to have all the cards and gifts wrapped up early too. My approach is to keep it as simple as possible, sticking to what is important to us. This is so difficult to do.

We're also not in to buying tons of gifts for the grandsons, especially while they're so young. Although we may have gone a bit overboard in the last couple of months with Ezra. Anyway.....I started a new tradition last year, I got PJ's for W, J, & E..all in red. They were rather stylish. Then I realized that they LOVE footed PJs. I think it has something to do with not turning up the heat in their home and camping. I found matching sets for W & J, and then scored matching sets for the boys at Costco!!!! Which turned out funny, because W's mom bought the boys PJ's at Costco!!! It's all good, the boys need plenty of PJ's. Don't they look cute and matching?!

We go to their home on Christmas morning to open gifts and have a breakfast of Swedish pancakes. Later in the evening we end up at our home for a big dinner of Prime Rib (which was a tad overdone this year), smoked Gouda mashed potatoes (which I may have gone a bit overboard with the cheese this year), lemon jello salad (special request of my MIL), Pillsbury refrigerator rolls (LOVE), asparagus (mixed this up, we usually have Dave's spectacular green beans). And for dessert, we break open the various gift tins we've received along with coffee (made from our new Keurig this year).

This year we did mix it up for Christmas Eve. The tradition is cioppino with bibs here at home. The kids were lighting the last Advent candle at their church, so we have postponed the cioppino (J may have had a mini fit over this) and joined them. I must say they were so cute. W, E, & T all had matching ties....T's was a bow tie! W was holding E while trying to read the scripture while E kept grabbing for the mic, then W was lighting the candle while E kept grabbing for the flame. This brought a chuckle to the entire congregation.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas, spent time with family & friends, and thought about the birth of Jesus.