An Impossible Task made Simpler

After a very busy Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and over 100 pictures on the camera, it is quite impossible to share all of the pictures in one post. So I thought I would condense my Christmas Day summary into a Top Five, similar to my weekend top five. It should be much easier to manage.

5. Christmas Eve 5:00 Service

My parents were supposed to come but with the weather looking iffy, I called them earlier in the day and suggested that maybe it would not be such a good idea.

There were three momentous events surrounding this service

A. Our family lit the advent candles for the service, which included Noah doing a reading and even Aaron speaking "Hope, Faith, Joy, Love" into the microphone. I was so proud of both of them.

B. While all of the kids of the church were up front looking at Baby Jesus during "Silent Night" the front candle stick toppled forward toward the crown on stage, shattering on the floor in front of the front pew sending glass everywhere. I stood up on the front step blocking kids from walking down while about five other parents crawled around on the floor picking up glass, while the singing continued on. At the end of the service, our pastor stood up and said "No one can say that we didn't bring down the house at our Christmas Eve Service!"

C. The service ran long and we were starving and ended up at at Friday's for dinner.

4. Christmas Eve at home

We got home somewhat late, but still had time for

setting out milk and cookies













and singing Happy Birthday to Jesus, complete with blowing out a candle..













We had made reindeer food, but it was so bitter cold out, we decided that the reindeer would be okay this year.

3. Presents

We got started opening around 8:00 with stocking stuff, stopped for a breakfast casserole that Noah complained EXTREMELY vocally about, and then finished up around11:00. The favorites of the day were:
Noah's Bakugans













Noah's "Ipod" (really a somewhat cheap mp3 player but he was thrilled) and speakers












Aaron's drum


















Steve got me some pajamas and slippers too.

2. Ah--Choo!!!

Somehow, everyone in our house has caught some sort of allergy and was sneezing, sniffling ALL DAY. We ran out of tissue buy mid morning and by the end, all of our noses were red and raw. It woke us all up early, and made for rough sleeping on the night before Christmas.

I finally took some benadryl to survive, which knocked me out completely for a little while, accompanied by the cats (and our stocking treats that Aaron kept sneaking into).










And even Noah gave himself some down time after awhile, surrounded by his favorite gifts.












I am praying that we all feel better tomorrow, but for sure we will be making a trip to the store to buy some tissue with lotion in it.

1. The PIE

Yup, after posting about never getting any pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, I took things into my own hands and bought my own apple pie to bake and have with ice cream when we got home from looking at Christmas lights.

Here we are looking at an amazing display called Christ Lights in Byron Center, complete with its own radio station and synchronized light show











But this is what was waiting at home. For no reason whatsoever, I took the pie out of the tin before I put it on the pan, and the pan and pie all ended up in the dumpster outside.










It was a fun and exhausting Christmas. Does anyone else feel the let down when it's over? I don't as much yet. Maybe because it was a good day, or maybe because I am ready to get our life back to some semblance of "normal".

I can tell you this much though. I have no intention of taking the tree down any time soon. It just may stay up until March.