The Holidays Revisited

The holidays were quite crazy this year. Juggling the kids and all their activities with everything else that seemed to come up caused me to become very frazzled. But everything in the end turned out well and we all enjoyed the Christmas season, except Greg, who caught a bad cold a couple of days before Christmas. It beat the stomach flu he had last year, but it put a damper on Christmas Day. Still, memories were created and of course, I have to blog to share it with you.

Decorating the tree is a little nicer now that the kids are old enough to do a lot of the work. The prelit tree that seemed so ingenious quite a few years ago was frustrating as some of the lights no longer work. I shifted and turned the tree and made it look decent and the decorating began. Of course, as luck would have it, a couple of days after creating one beautifully decorated tree, the middle section of the tree went out, never to be lit again, even after much effort. Not wanting to take everything off, we just lived with it. And somewhat enjoyed it, until right after Christmas when it was quickly dismantled.

Christmas would not be complete without a visit with Santa. We had gone to Bass Pro Shop last year and hardly anyone was there. Not this year! The word must have gotten out. The lines were very long. But we endured and the kids got to quickly tell Santa all their Christmas desires.

Madison and the rest of the 1st grade classes put on a little Christmas concert for the parents. She is in the front in the light purple pajamas. They sang a bunch of songs that they learned in only a couple of weeks. I was so impressed by this and the concert was very cute. It's hard for me to know that she is growing up so fast and will not be the tiny girl she is now for too much longer. But at least I can have memories of these events to cherish! If you are confused by their clothes, it was pajama day for the classes and they watched The Polar Express and ate cookies and drank cocoa to celebrate the coming holiday.

I has seen an advertisement for the church a few blocks away that was having a live nativity on Christmas Eve, so I ran the kids over to see it. It was so cold out, which may have been why there was no Mary and Joseph, but there were plenty of real animals, including camels, which was a real treat to see.

Christmas Day was exciting for all! I remember a few years ago when we would actually have to wake up the kids to open their presents. Now, they are at the age where they wake up early with excitment. Madison got a Bionicle video game (remember Halloween) and a horse stable. Alec received a Wii game he wanted and took not time in putting it in and playing it. Greg got me a Flip video camera so I can make crazy videos to post on YouTube. Well maybe not, but it will be nice not to have to decide what 10 minutes at an event I can record on my regular digital camera's memory card. 120 minues should allow me time to record any event the kids throw at me, including baseball games this summer. We spent the afternoon at my parent's house and has a wonderful time!

New Year's Eve was good. Because Greg and Alec were going ice fishing the following day, we all went to bed at a normal hour. I did watch the ball drop in New York at 10, so I did celebrate. We indulged in more food, including chicken wings, shrimp (Al is a huge shrimp lover), other yummy foods and sparkling cider in the fancy glasses. We are all excited to put the last year to bed and look forward to all the many new and exciting things that will happen in 2010. Happy New Year to all of our family and friends!