Merry Christmas everyone!
It’s a pretty strange Christmas here in Minnesota with no snow on the ground. It’s about 35 degrees and I haven’t worn my jacket in 3 days. If we could keep the temperature and have a light dusting on the ground, that would be perfect.
We celebrated Christmas with Becky’s family on Friday night; the first of our Christmas doubleheader. We were there with Becky’s entire family which now numbers 17: Tom & Nola, the four of us, Heather, Shawn, Noah and Zach, Brandon, Tina and Taydon, Somer, then Jess, Matt and Evia. With three babies under 1 and three toddlers, there’s a lot of activity going on. At any one time you should expect one of those 6 to be crying, but they held in there pretty well. Katie and Amelia made out well. Katie came away with some ponies, a Care Bears bear and video (Amelia got one too), some balls for playing and a robe since she loves to take baths. Amelia got some clothes, her Care bear and another doll, which I was glad to see because I feel like she doesn’t have many toys of her own.
Christmas #2 was immediately following at Becky’s grandma’s house (which is right in the backyard of her mom’s house). That is usually a larger affair, but with it being so early this year there weren’t as many people as normal. There was Bud & Becky, Fran, Mark & Gabby (their grand-daughter), Becky’s family, Greg (with no kids this time), Kirk & Jackie and their son Tom and his girlfriend, Beth, Dave, Travis & Tate. So it was really the local relatives plus Becky’s family. With so many people in the extended family, it’s usually pretty crowded with a tree full of gifts and a room full of people. We enjoyed the meal and the presents and catching up with all the relatives.
Saturday morning chaos started at 9am with the preparation for Taydon’s shower at 10. Amelia and I decided to head out with Becky’s grandpa Bud to look at some land overlooking Lake Oahe (the Missouri River) while the shower ensued. The land we looked at was listed by a Pierre realtor and it’s 23.6 acres about 20 minutes from town. It was really hard to find; there’s no road leading to it. We had to drive across two fields to get there. When we finally got there we saw a view worth writing home about, but we’re not sure it was part of the land for sale. We’re in no hurry to buy, so I’ll have to find out more information about it before we do anything. Back at the shower, I understand they played "The Price Is Right", but Tina must be good because she got all the gifts. Saturday night we went to Brandon’s house for some prime rib. It was really good – they bought 12 pounds of it and cooked it all afternoon. After dinner we played a little poker and then called it good for the night. Katie slept in her cousin Noah’s Lighting The Queen bed/car that night – it was a fun sight.
We headed home today and thankfully had no trouble with the roads. On the way home we were trying to decide what our traditional Christmas dinner should be, since we’ve always been going to one of our parent’s houses up until now, it hadn’t occurred to us to have a dinner plan, but now there we are spending Christmas Eve at home as a family, we should probably have a plan. I’m not sure we decided on anything, but the prime rib from the night before left a positive impression and we might try that if we are home long enough to cook it. For tonight, we tried some chicken a la mushroom soup and Macaroni and Cheese. It was all right, but I hope this dinner plan is temporary. After dinner we opened presents, and Katie was thrilled by her Dora books. We got a walker/rider toy for Amelia that she seemed to like. She is still a long way from walking, but hopefully this will help her strengthen her legs so she can get closer. She’s still on the verge of crawling, but hasn’t taken more than one step yet. Becky and I just got each other some small gifts – her big gift was a Zune that she got back in November, and my big gift will be the chance to have LASIK surgery sometime early next year.
Tomorrow will bring Christmas #4 at my parents house with my brothers arriving by 11 tomorrow morning. I’m looking forward to the time together and the traditional meal of roast beef over mashed potatoes. Katie is looking forward to opening more presents. I think she’ll be in for a shock on Dec 26 when she doesn’t get to open any presents that day. Fortunately for her birthday is only 4 weeks away.
Good night and Merry Christmas.
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