Merry Christmas again!
Yes, Boxing Day is over now too, but I
promised a double update; so let’s start with the Christmas Day action!
We were up early – by a bit after
five-thirty; and Ethan and Ehlana were happy to wake me up first so that we could
put a pot of coffee on to brew, boil the kettle for hot chocolate, and get a
snack ready before waking up Mom and Dad.
They took care of that too; which is why I had time to share a Merry Christmas,
good morning kiss or three with Michael when he came over. He got a wake-up call from the twins too; but
his was via Ethan’s iPad and his iPod.
They’d set that up ahead of time, so Michael had been ready for it, and
he’d managed to get more sleep than I did thanks to not having any little kids
in the house to wait to play Santa for – unless you’re counting his Mom!
After a round of Merry Christmas hugs and
kisses in the kitchen, and once we’d filled drink orders and moved into the
living room; it was time to jump right into finding out what Santa left for us
in our stockings and under the tree.
That was fun, and I loved my gifts as much as the next teenage girl; but
let’s not really get bogged down with a long description of every present given
and received. Mom and Dad always get us
really nice things; Michael earns another A+ on the boyfriend front for
Christmas gift picks; and every moment was special and magical for me. We also remember what’s most important about
Christmas; and it’s the love that makes these moments so special – not the
gifts, decorations, food, and the rest of the traditions.
Doing the gift exchange for six didn’t take
that long, and while we had a little time to play with new toys and chat;
Michael and I needed to get moving again too soon – and so did Mom and Dad;
since they had work to do in the kitchen to get ready for breakfast and the
family dinner. Michael went home while I
hit the shower and got dressed up for the day in a new outfit that Mom had
gotten for me, and by the time I was ready to go to Michael’s house; the turkey
was in the oven, and Grandma and Grandpa had arrived to have breakfast with
Mom, Dad, and the twins before they’d be moving on to Uncle Adam and Aunt
Leanne’s house. We decided to do our
gift exchange when we did that with the rest of the family; mostly because I
couldn’t stay long enough to enjoy the moment.
The hugs, kisses, and best wishes were enough for then, though; and I
was off to spend a couple of hours and change with Michael and his family.
Opening stockings again there was fun, and
we did that before breakfast; but waited until after we ate to open our gifts. The food and family time continued the
already great day; and we had the bonus of having Stephanie’s parents there
with us – an option that made life easier for Jake and Stephanie. Lucas couldn’t be with us too; but he and
Rebecca spent most of the rest of the day together once he’d finished the
morning Christmas thing with his own family.
I’m again going to skip the gift play-by-play; but one I will mention is
Rebecca’s top gift – her first cell phone.
As usual with things like this, I’m sure
there was some parental collusion; and we knew shortly after Rebecca turned her
new phone on for the first time that several of her friends – including Jenny –
had new phones for Christmas too. I’m
okay with not being on that phone-gift list; if only because I wouldn’t use one
enough right now to be worth paying for a plan.
Yeah, I know that’s crazy-talk for a teen these days; but I do have
other communication options if needed.
My personal favorite is just going and talking to someone in
person. If that’s something that doesn’t
happen much in your ‘now’; think about trying it out – it’s like face time
without the phones or software!
I’m not making fun of smart phones – they do
have their uses. I just don’t personally
rate them as a very high priority for me right now. That’ll change once I’m ready to travel a bit
more – and can drive a car on my own in a couple of years. This is one club I don’t have a problem with
being excluded from for a while longer, but Rebecca was very happy; and I’m
glad that she’s enjoying her new favorite toy.
There had been a lot of work going on at
Michael’s house before breakfast as Jacob and Jake had help with getting the
turkey in the oven and other prep work done along with making breakfast, and
though Michael and I weren’t in on that; we did help with some of the work
after breakfast – and before we were set free to go and play between then and
when we were doing our first family dinner of the day at my house. That was probably worked out with the parents
too; though not for everyone in all of our collective families. Michael and I were on the move most of that
time – stopping in for a visit with Rowen and Tim at Rowen’s house to exchange
gifts with them; and make a few other stops before moving on to my house in
time to play with Ethan, Ehlana, and our cousins for a little while before
having our Christmas dinner.
For that meal, we were seated at the dining
room table with grandma, grandpa, Aunt Leanne, and Uncle Adam closest to us
instead of with the younger kids; and I really loved getting to spend that time
with them – especially since it was about the only time we had with them all
day. The meal was great, and while I’d
normally rank it higher than that; I do have to be honest and compare it to the
dinner that Jacob and Jake put on for us at the Stone-Bassett family
dinner. Sorry, Mom, and everyone else
involved; but the chefs in town won this round!
I can tell you that the clean-ups for each meal were very similar,
though; and Michael and I weren’t surprised to be on both of those crews.
Our day really was a blur of non-stop
action – both work and fun. The early
family dinner at my house was followed by the clean-up and family gift
exchange. We had a bit of time to play
with new toys again with my brother, sister, and cousins; but then Michael and
I needed to run again to get to his house for family dinner number two. This time, we were with his younger cousins
for dinner; though we were happy to spend that hour and a half with Jessica,
Ryan, and Sophia. I do like his aunts
and uncles a lot, but Michael and Rebecca have a different relationship with
them than I have with Aunt Leanne – mostly because all of the parents in their
family have very irregular work hours with their respective businesses. Aunt Sylvia is the only exception, since she’s
mostly stayed at home with the kids; but she’s still very busy too – and does
work for their business from home.
As mentioned, that meal was fabulous; and
Michael and I spent the rest of the evening at his house. The dinner was followed by clean-up number
two – or three if you include breakfast; and then we had the gift exchange for
Michael’s family. It was play or wind
down time after that. The adults watched
a couple of movies in the living room and the kids and teens mostly played
upstairs with news toys and video games.
Rebecca and I got to play with Sophia and Jessica while our boys mostly
played video games with Ryan and some of the other guys. We had some drop-in playmates too, but the
older teens and college students spent more time in the living room with the
parents – or hanging out together somewhere else in the house.
I stayed with Michael until midnight after
helping Michael with the last clean-up of the day. We’d started that as soon as the last of
their guests went home and his parents, Jake, Stephanie, and Rebecca went up to
bed so they could get some sleep ahead of the early wake-up call that was
coming for the breakfast buffet at the Inn in the morning. That also allowed us to be alone for our
goodnight hugs and kisses, so we made that a minor make-out session in the
living room. We didn’t let that get too
out of hand because Michael needs to be at the Inn early too; which is why I
didn’t stay later and came home for the night.
Everyone else at my house was sleeping by then too, so that’s the end of
my Christmas Day part of this update.
There’s a lot I didn’t include just to keep this from being a small
novel; but I hope it’s obvious that we collectively had a fairly amazing day –
and I loved every minute of it!
Starting out Boxing Day with a breakfast
buffet at the Inn is bound to make anyone happy; and it definitely did that for
me today. So did the Tai Chi with Mom,
Dad, and the twins; and the morning of shopping with Rowen and some of our
favorite women and girls – both family and friends. We didn’t have many of our weekend guests
here for most of the morning fun; but our company did arrive throughout the day
beginning in the late morning. Michael
was busy at the Inn, so I felt a little bit guilty for not staying there to
help him out; but not enough to skip all of the shopping fun – especially when
we had another awesome day to be out and about.
That’s something that I didn’t include in
the first half of this report, but then we didn’t really get outdoors much
yesterday to enjoy the unusually warm temperatures for around here at
Christmas. Maybe I’m just blocking it
out because I wanted snow for the day and we weren’t going to get that with
temperatures in the low fifties. It is
nice to wander around the stores and not need to bundle up or haul all of the
winter weather gear around while shopping, though; so I’m also apparently
bi-polar about things like this! ;^)
Okay, let’s get back to the actual
news. Breakfast was good, and Rowen and
I had that meal with Ethan, Ehlana, Naomi, and Aiden. The twins had their best friends dropped off
with them for the day while three out of four of their parents were busy at the
stores. Ehlana and Naomi were with us for
the shopping too; but Ethan and Aiden got to go and hang out with Dad and the
other guys instead of hanging out with us.
They guys went shopping for a while too, but they also went back to the
houses early to put lunch together – and welcome some of the early arrivals. The shopping was fun and we each bought a few
things; but Boxing Day isn’t as crazy around here as other places – it’s just
fun; and a chance for quite a few people to use gift certificates that they
received for Christmas – especially at stores like Palmers, the Fix-it Shop,
and Emerson Computers.
Rowen needed to spend some time helping out
at the computer store too, so she went to do that when I went home with the
other girls in my family for lunch. My
day kicked up a couple of notches on the busy scale then because I helped with
the work for lunch, did some kid-control duties, and helped with unpacking cars
and SUV’s when the Rice clan arrived.
Dawn helped me out with some of that, and we spent most of the rest of
the day together after that; while Violet and Dillon didn’t stay long before
going over to his house to spend the rest of the day with his family.
There’s way too much in the afternoon news
to cover everything. There was more
shopping for the visiting girls in the family; the guys played some football at
the park; there was something going on at every house in the family; and Dawn
and I ran around trying to do as much as we could of everything – usually with
Ehlana and Naomi in tow – and sometimes with Ethan and Aiden too. That included shopping and football; hanging
out with Jaimie, Kaitlyn, and Jayden for a while; and visiting with all of our
aunts, uncles, and collective grandparents for at least a few minutes each. It’s no wonder that I’m tired out now; but it
was all a blast of fun too!
Michael had some breaks, so I got to spend
some time with him, but he worked until close too; so he just went home after
that instead of hanging out with me after work.
He still has two more busy days ahead of him at the Inn; so we’ll just
have to fit in some time for us whenever we can. For me, the last third or so of my day was
probably the quietest – though the busy didn’t really change all that much – we
just didn’t have everyone together in one place tonight. Guests were in their host homes for dinner
and the evening, and while there was some visiting going on; we only had
Jonathan come over to spend extra time playing video games with Chris and
Martin at our house.
I helped out with the pre and post-dinner
work in the kitchen; Rowen and I were on kid control during dinner and for the
evening; and most of the adults here were ready to go to bed early tonight
after a busy travel and play day. That
didn’t include Chris, Martin, and Jonathan; and they’re still playing video
games in the living room as I write this – after watching the evening college
bowl game with some of the other guys.
At least they did that downstairs tonight and freed up the lounge for
the girls to play in and watch chick or kid flicks. The last few hours have mostly been a
combination of kid play and girl chat time for Dawn and me. Movies were playing too, but I didn’t pay
much attention to them. I had more fun
playing and then winding down with Dawn and any of the other women and girls in
the lounge – though the n umber of girls varied quite a bit.
Dawn and I have been on our own for an hour
or so; she’s sleeping now; and I plan on being out for the count shortly after
finishing this report. I may not have to
work all day tomorrow like some of my friends do, but we do have a major family
Christmas to put on; and even if I’m not working in the kitchen all day, I’m
sure that kid control will be a nearly full-time job for me while the adults
are busy. The warm is coming to an end
overnight, and we’ve had a bit of rain here and there that will continue
overnight; so the weather could be an issue for our entertainment options for
the younger kids. At least they got to
be out and played at the park for a while today. A flake or three of snow is possible too; but
I won’t hold my breath on that one.
I’ll let you know how that goes with the
next update, but I don’t really have anything else pressing to add to this
report; so I’m going to wrap this up and get some sleep. We’ve had nearly as much fun today as we did
yesterday, and while I can’t rank this higher than Christmas Day if for no
other reason than I didn’t get to spend much time with Michael; I do think we’re
well on the way to another best-ever-so-far kind of holiday and long weekend.
Two more days to go, and then some of us
will want to nap and rest up until New Year’s Eve! I’m going to get on to the napping part of my
night right now, though; so, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
