The Five Days of Christmas...

DAY ONE:

We have enjoyed five days of non-stop Christmas! Our celebrations began Thursday at our former pastor and wife's house. They love our children like grandchildren. Alice is a wonderful cook (I really appreciate that since I am so very culinarily challenged!) and she really out did herself this year with Christmas dinner. She had the best potato casserole I have ever tasted, a pineapple cassesrole that Grant especially liked (she called it "Dead Man's Casserole" since at one of their earlier churches someone had dubbed it that after hearing her remark that it was so quick and simple to pull together that she often added it to the meal she would prepare to take to family's who had lost a loved one), chicken fixed a way I have never tried it (it was good!), cranberry stuff (what do you call that cranberry gel stuff that no one in my family ever eats?), a marvelous crisp green salad caserole (don't know how to describe it...but it was prepared in a casserole dish and looked like some sort of casserole with it's white layered top, but it was the most delicious salad I have ever tasted!), green beans, rolls, and five or six dessert choices. All of our family opted for the chocolate eclair dessert. That is our favorite. Alice gave me the recipe about three years ago and I have YET to try it. I think I lost it. Grant says it is probably next to Aunt Vonnie's wonderful gumbo soup recipe that I have also never gotten around to trying (much to Grant's frustration). (Do you think the poor man is already tired of BBQ chicken wings and spaghetti...about the only two meals we cook? It's only been fifteen and a half years...besides, before I married him, he lived on spaghetti...so, I have actually DOUBLED the variety in his diet!) This chocolate eclair dessert really is wonderfully delicious...it is decadent layers of chocolate, vanilla pudding, and graham crackers. It is that layer of chocolate on top that makes it so addictive! Thursday night, Alice had dyed the vanilla pudding a pale shade of green to make it more Christmasy.


The very best part of that Christmas dinner, though, was the people. We were completely surprised to find our dear friends Nelda and Cecil there. We hadn't seen them in so very long. Nelda is doing so much better...having gotten through all her rounds of chemo. Her hair is even growing back! And, Lisa was there, too...coming straight from work. She has been pulling four shifts a week (most of them 12 shifts in ICU & PICU) in order to get in as many hours at the VA as she can before the year ends. And it was great to see Pastor and Alice again. They have been so busy with out of town interim pastorates this past year that we haven't seen much of them.


















DAY TWO (Friday):

Friday evening, we let the kids each open ONE of their presents (letting them each choose between their two smaller presents). Just as they were starting to open their presents, Grant's parents (from next door) and his sister's family (from Texas) dropped by, adding to the festivities!












DAY THREE (Saturday):


On Saturday, we went to my parents' home (just an hour and twenty minutes away). This will be my Grandma's first Christmas without Grandpa, so her remaining three daughters (we lost Aunt Pat over a year ago) were planning on meeting in Wichita for Christmas to be with her. Since Mom and Dad would be in Wichita for Christmas, we had planned on having our Christmas with them early. Knowing that Yea Yea and Pop John would be in Wichita for Christmas, I had called Aunt Vonnie (Yea Yea) Friday night to see if I could convince them to swing over to KC on their way home to Texas after Christmas. I hadn't gotten any answer on their home phone, so I had tried Aunt Vonnie's cell phone. I reached her on that one. She was out shopping. I asked her if she was in Wichita. She said, "No. We aren't going there until Sunday morning." So, I ASSUMED that meant she was still in Texas and she did nothing to dispell this mis-assumption! She said they were on a pretty tight schedule and most likely wouldn't be able to make it to KC after their Wichita visit. I hung up disappointed...not knowing when the kids would get to celebrate Christmas with their Texas grandparents. So, I was totally shocked when we arrived at my parents' house the next morning and were greeted not by my parents, but by Pop John and Yea Yea (Mom's sister, my Aunt Vonnie, the kids' grandma from Texas)!


Pop John and Yea Yea TOTALLY fooled me! I didn't suspect for one instant when I had been speaking on the phone with Aunt Vonnie the night before that she was already in KC, not at home in Texas! They weren't finished with their orneriness, though... The kids were dying to open presents. I had thought they should wait until after dinner to open them. My dad talked me into letting them open ONE present before dinner. Then Yea Yea jumped in and handed them the present that she and Pop John had brought each of them. The kids were so excited. Darcy, was soon looking a bit disappointed, though, as she examined the brick that her Grandmother had painted black and glued jewels onto. She was trying to be polite and LOOK pleased, as her grandma explained to her that she had made it for her to hold her bedroom curtains back. I thought it would make a nice doorstop, too...except that it still looked like a brick in spite of it's coating of paint and bejeweled treatment. Then Doug opened HIS gift. It was five packages of Ramen noodles. Now Doug looked downright perplexed. This was obviously the last thing on earth he had expected to find wrapped up. Though Doug was perplexed, he was pleased, none-the-less! He LOVES Ramen noodles. Later in the day, I asked him what his favorite Christmas present was this year and he replied the Ramen noodles! Rayna's joke gift backfired even more....it was a box of rocks...BUT, Yea yea had made the mistake of choosing clear rocks and putting them in a pretty little red treasure chest. Rayna was absolutely DELIGHTED. She figured these were princess diamonds. She LOVED her gift! Pop John and Yea Yea then gave them their REAL presents...money to shop with. (Always a favorite!) And Grandma B gave each of the kids a REAL present to open before we had dinner.



Dinner was excellent...of course! But, the kids rushed through their meal, knowing that there were more presents waiting. I teased poor Doug by telling him that he couldn't open his presents until he had eaten three pieces of pie (he had just informed me he was too full for any dessert). Doug thought I was serious. The look on his face was priceless as he held up one finger and tried to bargain me down to just one piece of pie! Poor kid...his mother forcing pie upon him! No...I didn't make him eat any pie, at all! Moments later, all three kids were ripping into the remaining presents!
















DAY FOUR (Sunday, Christmas Eve):

Sunday morning our family was more than could fit in a single pew at church! A little over a year ago, Grant's parents and ourselves and Grant's sisters' family all began attending the same church. So, we usually can pretty much fill up a pew, but, this Sunday, Grant's other sister and her family from Texas were up here and so we could not squeeze into one pew altogether. It was really neat having so many family members together during this Christmas Eve service. Grant and I have had such a hard time rooting into our new church. The loss of our original church (two years ago)was so devastating. Then, we had joined a small Bible church that felt like it could soon be home. We had just begun putting our roots down when that little church was rocked by a scandal and the congregation chose to close the church and sell the building. About a month later, they reconsidered and kept the church going after all, but, by that time, we were already well into the process of looking for a new church home. We soon began attending this present church every Sunday and most Wednesdays...but it has been hard to feel rooted into this congregation...not because of any lack in the church, simply because our twice burned hearts have been left awfully numb. Christmas Eve, though, for the first time I realized as I looked around, that this church is beginning to feel like "my" church...not just someplace we are visiting/passing through.

After church, Grant's dad took all fifteen of us out to eat at an excellent Chinese buffet. I didn't have my camera with me--can you believe it?! We had a lot of fun, but I don't have any pictures of it. I was SO TIRED. I had stayed up until 4:00 am Saturday morning finishing up the photo album that I was giving to my parents for Christmas--getting only 3 hours of sleep that night. Then, the following night (Saturday night) I had been up until about midnight finishing up the photo album we will be giving Grant's parents tomorrow. Needless to say, I was sleepier than I have been in a very long time. I had been seeing two pastors at the front of the church instead of just one! I hate that when I see two diagonally opposite images and don't know WHICH of the two to focus on! I wasn't much more alert at the Chinese restaurant. The result being that I was quite giddy. When I am overly sleepy, EVERYTHING strikes me as hilariously funny. So, I had a wonderful time down on the far end of the table, sitting with two of my college aged nephews and my college aged niece and Rayna and Darcy. The niece and nephews' interactions were just cracking me up.

After returning home, we all cleaned on the house a bit in hopes that we could coerce Grant into letting us open our presents early! (In MY family, we never had any Christmas presents left to open on Christmas morning! We would always begin opening things a week or more in advance...first one, then another...then the rest! Grant's family was more structured and traditional in their approach to gift opening. So, it is that the kids and I are always trying to talk Grant into letting us open a few presents early...while he, himself, isn't the least tempted to do so!) I used the arguement that it would be better to open our Christmas presents on Christmas Eve since we would be going over to Grant's parents' home on Christmas Day and the kids would be opening the presents from their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins then. Grant wasn't biting...but, he is enough of an opportunist to see what power he had at his disposal! So, he told us we MIGHT get to open our presents if we got the house into order. So, it was that all five of us were busy picking up the house Sunday afternoon. Early Sunday evening, we had our own immediate family Christmas celebration. Darcy read Luke chapter two aloud and then the kids took turns opening their presents one by one.

We had popcorn for supper and the kids disappeared down to the basement family room to watch more of Doug's "Justice League Season One" together while Grant and I went upstairs to watch one of Grant's new "Mission Impossible Season One" episodes. After the first episode was over, I put the kids to bed. Then, I played with Doug's new Batman "laptop computer" toy for about half an hour (figuring out what all activities are on it, so I can show Doug how to play it!...that was after I had spent quite a while figuring out Darcy's MP3 player and putting a couple of photos onto it for her. I will leave it to her to put the music files on it!). When I finally came back up to our bedroom, instead of watching more Mission Impossible, Grant was watching "Die Hard". I expressed surprise that he was watching "Die Hard" and he replied, "It's a CHRISTMAS movie!" (Oh right! I guess it DOES take place during Christmas...but it is a dice 'em up, blow 'em up movie!) I couldn't help but recall a family conversation from three nights earlier... It was Wednesday night and there wasn't going to be any church activities because of the holiday, so, we decided to go to the movies (something we almost never do). Darcy, Doug, and Rayna all wanted to see "Eragon", but Grant had insisted we see "Nativity Story" since it was Christmas time. He had said, "Let's see this movie to set the mood for Christmas." So, as I saw his Christmas Eve movie playing in our room, I had to chuckle. Bruce Willis was definitely setting a unique Christmas mood!


(I have more photos to post to this blog entry and more text to put in, too...but, it will have to wait until later tonight. Need to head over to Mom and Dad C's right now!)