Christmas Celebration

Christmas morning was a wonderful family moment for me. To start off I got to sleep all the way through the night. Baby Boy didn't wake up until 6:30am! It was great! I went in and got him and thought I would try sleeping a few more minutes with him laying between Mike and I. I couldn't believe it because the next thing I knew, I woke up at 8:30am!! Wow! We broke records with that! So, when I saw what time it was, I turned on the Christmas music next to the bed and even blasted it. I'm not sure if hubby was too happy, but I didn't care...it was Christmas! I said, "Merry Christmas baby boy! It's your first Christmas!" I then started yelling at my daughter to wake up and come be with us in our bed. She came running in and it was a wonderful family moment...all of us in the big bed together singing Christmas songs.

I then got up and took baby boy in the living room to the manger and said, "Tell Jesus Happy Birthday. It is Jesus' birthday!" He got all excited and started bouncing around and waving at baby Jesus. It was cute. I put him in his high chair to give him his breakfast before opening presents and he started putting his one finger up. I thought oh, dear...he thinks it is his birthday! You see....he just had a birthday a couple weeks ago and turned one. So, since there are presents and we are saying happy birthday, he thinks it is his. lol I told him, "Yes, you are one, but baby Jesus is much older than that!" lol

We had a great day over all. There were some things that happend that if we didn't know the real meaning of Christmas we could have gotten upset about. But all was good and we stay focused on the birthday party and all the blessings we have. We ended the evening with reading the story of Jesus' birth, singing Happy Birthday to Jesus, blowing out the candle, and eating the cake I made with the manger on it while sipping the Christmas tea. (don't make fun of my cake too much because we can't have sugar, just Stevia....I am still trying to find an icing we can make that is pretty. This does taste good, just not pretty. lol) I hope you remembered the real meaning of Christmas this year. I hope you didn't get too caught up in the business of the day and forgot the meaning. We didn't have all the Christmas dinner we usually have or the goodies we usually do because of the money situation, we didn't get to buy presents for each other yet because we had a snow storm that was so bad to get out that nobody could go to work or get out for a couple weeks now, we did't get to watch our traditional Christmas movie because the VCR quit on us, and there were many other things that we usually do, but didn't get to this year, but it was okay because Christmas wasn't about us and we still had a lot to be thankful for. I remembered it was His birthday and what He gave us, I remembered we had eachother, I remembered there were a lot of people out there worse off than us, and I remembered my friends who lost their daughter and what they must be going through along with a lot of others who had lost their loved ones this last year. We can't complain. We can thank Him for His blessings and pray for the others who are suffering. Pray for them, encourage them, invest in their lives if there is a need...be the present to someone who needs a loving hand. There are a lot of needs out there and a lot of broken hearts.
I hope and pray you had a great Christmas and I pray you will have a renewed spirit within you from the things God has taught you through this last year and you will bring it into the new year.

Christmas questions

Some fun questions a friend of mine had on her webpage that I'm going to use and you can do the same.

1. Hot chocolate or eggnog? Hot chocolate since I can't drink eggnog. I am allergic to eggs and sugar.

2. Does Santa wrap the presents or just sit them under the tree? We don't do the Santa thing in our house. We have taught the idea of being a giving person like the real St. Nick was, but not the character. Mamaw is our Santa in this house. lol

3. Colored lights on tree and house or White? We have white lights on the tree, white candle lights in the window and then some colored lights throughout the house. We usually have colored lights outside, but because of the money this year, we have decided to go simple and not spend the money for electricity.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? Yes, we always hang mistletoe. Watch out when you come to our house. lol

5. When do you put your decorations up? We always put them up the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? That's tough. I like it all. I like the turkey, the rice stuffing, the sweet potato casserole, the cranberry sauce, and the mashed potatoes.

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child. I have two favorite memories. The first one was when my great grandmother was staying with us. She died very shortly after Christmas, but she was so childlike and was extremely excited about Christmas. She was up all night with me anticipating the gifts. It was fun to me because I didn't have a brother or sister to be up with, so it was a lot of fun to have her. My other favorite memory was when my aunt and cousins were with us on Christmas and we had a white Christmas. After dinner and presents that evening we went out walking in the snow, singing carols through the neighborhood. It was such a perfect time.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I was never taught that Santa was real.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas eve? I opened a gift on Christmas eve growing up, but I don't now. We do let Alyssa open up one and now that Jeremiah is here, he will too.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? We all decorate the tree together and have our specific jobs to do. Alyssa and Mike put the branches together, I get them fluffed out just right, Mike and Alyssa do the lights, Alyssa and I decorate the tree, Mike puts the angel on top.

11. Snow...love it or dread it? We love it out here because we don't hardly get any. We always hope for a white Christmas. It isn't the best having snow out here if you need to drive because they don't believe in putting salt down on the roads. We could get a inch of snow and be snowed in. It is beautiful when it snows here with the evergreen trees, the mountains, and all the scenery here.

12. Can you ice skate? I use to ice skate growing up. We had a pond in our front yard that I would ice skate on all the time and then in college they had an iceskating rink. I don't think I have been iceskating for like 14 years now. Wow!

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I don't remember having an absolute favorite. They were all special and meant a lot. I will say that last year was pretty special because I received a baby boy just a little over a week before Christmas day.

14. What is the most important thing about the holidays for you? Celebrating Jesus' birthday.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Jesus' birthday cake. We always had a birthday cake when I was growing up that my grandma would make. It was a two layers...red jello cake on one, green jello cake on another one. It was covered in coolwhip and had a little manger scene on top. I can't have this cake now because of allergies, so we put the manger on another kind of cake that I can have or pecan pie or something.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? I don't have a favorite. I love them all. Traditions are important to me and my family is always laughing at me because I am huge on traditions. I love the getting up, unwrapping presents, reading the Christmas story, having dinner, going into the city and looking at the Christmas windows and the tree, coming home and singing Happy Birthday to Jesus and eating the cake.

17. What tops your tree? An angel

18. Which do you prefer, the giving or receiving? I enjoy both. It is a lot of fun giving and seeing the peoples face when they see what you got them or made them. I also enjoy the receiving because you know that person has put a lot of thought and effort into your gift and they are excited to give that gift.

19. What is your favorite Christmas song? hmmm that is a hard question. I just love Chrismas music...all kinds.

20. Candy canes...yuck or yum? When I use to eat candy canes, I loved the old fashioned kind that were soft to eat. I would have to say yuck now because they would make me sick with the sugar.

21. What do you want for Christmas? The first thing I would like to have is to be able to have the money for a Christmas meal. The second thing would be money for a camera. I am trying to raise money for a specific camera so I can start my photography business.

22. Do you attend an annual Christmas party? No, we don't have any specific parties we go to. We usually have an open house party for our friends, but we aren't this year because of Mike's work schedule.

23. Do you dress up on Christmas or wear PJ's? We are typically in pj's while opening presents and then dress up for the day.

24. Do you own a Christmas hat? Yes. When Mike, Alyssa and I were delivering papers together, a fellow worker gave us all hats to wear on the route during the season. It was a lot of fun and Alyssa still remembers it.

25. Who do you usually spend Christmas with? We just stay at home and are together as a family. Both of our families are back east, so we are usually alone. With work schedules especially this time of year, we just enjoy having Mike home and spend time with him. Last year we actually had my mom out here which was a lot of fun. She was here for her grandson's birth and got to stay through Christmas.