Day after Christmas Reflection, 2008

This is nice, having the day after Christmas off and no where to be until about noon. I plan on having lunch with Bill & getting the oil changed in my car. And that is it!! No shopping and taking advantage of Black Friday II. I paid cash for every single gift and grocery item for Christmas and don't intend to break that record today. Plus there is absolutely nothing to be added to the gifts I received this year.

You may know we celebrated Christmas twice this year. Once the first weekend of December when the Florida kids were up and then again yesterday with just the locals. And one day was just as special as the other, just different.

Some of the highlights from yesterday:

Our oldest granddaughter, Ashley (FL) sent a package to NJ with gifts purchased with her very own money. Her economics class at school (3rd grade) held a Holiday Bazaar stocked with merchandise made by the students. Each student was to earn "investment capital" at home, purchase supplies, consider man hours etc to determine the retail price of the item. Whew! What are they teaching kids these days? To become productive, contributing citizens or what? We received a decoupage patriotic plate - perfect for the mantle in our Patriotic Christmas Tree room! We also had a great phone conversation earlier in the day with both Ashley & Emily. Always a neat tradition.

And then, our local kids arrived and we had an early dinner. I missed the 3pm sit down time by four minutes!!! And all the food was hot and no burned rolls!! Amazing.

We gathered around the kitchen table, all 11 of us. Oops 10, Brayden (6 mos) took a nap during most of the meal - good boy!

We served sparkling cider in wine glasses, including a shorter glass for Mackenzie (3 yrs). She looked so cute picking it up by the stem and taking sips. And picking it up again and again. Monica (mom) had to move it from her reach and work out a deal. Bite of food, sip of juice. It was really cute. Sorry no camera at the table, darn!

The first gift Brayden opened - with big sister's help - had a clear front on the package. Brayden was sitting on his mommy's lap at the time and when he saw the package he leaned forward and put his face right to the plastic mouth wide open. Inside was a set of teething keys we are sure he wanted to get to, right away. It was cute. Oh by the way, he got "two front teeth" for Christmas and he knows how to use them. Ouch!

Sometime later, after dessert, Pop Pop and Mackenzie retired to the library to do puzzles. Brian (Kelly's boyfriend & police officer) slept through dessert. He worked the night shift Christmas Eve and had to go back to work at midnight. Mom just needed her chair and ottoman, and I think she dove right into her new set of crossword puzzle books (gift from Kelly & Brian).

The rest of us started a game of Scattagories with Teams.
Team One: Kelly & Sara
Team Two: Andrew & Kevin
Team Three: Monica & me

Team One just about walked away with the win! Team Two came in second with some really weird answers. And poor Team Three. Me, 57 year old grandmother and Monica, exhausted young mother with infant in arms while we played. What were we thinking?

But it's funny to see the personalities through the responses to the different catagories. A dice is tossed indicating the letter to be used for the beginning letter of all answers in the round of 11 or 12 topics. My favorite: Companies using the letter G.
Team Three (mommy & grandmom)? Grayco (baby furniture & equipment).
Team Two(boys)? Goodyear (car tires).
Team One(girls, ie shoppers)? Gucci! DUH!!! I think they made a date to go shopping this weekend with thier winnings!

I chuckle even now.

Too soon, for me, the evening came to an end. I had a bit of closure loading the new dishwasher and visiting with Mom and Bill before we retired to our separate living quarters. And then to bed - at 9:30!

It was a good day! A really really good day.

Thanks Jesus for giving us a reason to gather and to give and to enjoy.