Christmas – How did you spend your day?

Well – we survived thrived through another Christmas season!  I was most relieved to stop shopping.  When Christmas day arrived I was done, for better or worse!

Tom prepared a five course meal for Christmas Eve.

Here’s the menu:
Black Bean Soup
Spinach Salad with Raspberries and Cranberries and toasted Pecans
Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding and steamed Carrots
A selection of cheeses (Manchego – Mizithra – Da Vinci) with Pear and Apple
Chocolate Eclairs

We invited Alex & Cynthia, Andrew & Sarah, and Travis & Jen and all their kids to join us.  Sarah did an excellent job blogging all about it here.  It was fun to have everyone together and I think my favorite part is seeing all the kids in their p.j.’s.  Wish Kate could have been here too!!

I think the kids liked Christmas day well enough and were mostly satisfied with their gifts (no Nintendo DS arrived like magic under our tree, darn it!).  We repeated last Christmas day’s schedule by letting the kids explore all the stuff from Santa, feeding them breakfast, and taking them to the movies (we saw The Princess and the Frog).  Afterwards we came back home and opened the gifts from family.  We tried the homemade gifts again, and mostly it was successful.

Andrew and Haley made a quilt for Spencer.

Haley made a blanket for Andrew, and a knitted hat for her dad.

Andrew made a bunch of Easybake mixes for Haley and a hot pot holder rack for his dad.

Spencer made coupons for each of the kids with things like “I’ll take you to McDonalds” and “I’ll play a board game with you” and he made a lap desk for his dad.

They all made me personalized place mats and Spencer included a memo board.

I’ve been liking this tradition, though I realized I need to start on it a lot sooner so that we aren’t scrambling in the last week to finish up crafty type stuff.

In the evening we joined Travis & Jen at their house where everyone ate and played and sang (the Cottles got a Karaoke Machine for Christmas)!  How grateful we are for everyone – we have such great family and friends.  I have loved all the Christmas cards we’ve received this year and are so glad to see that you are all doing well.  Mostly we are grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who sent His Son to earth.  How grateful we are for His Life and His Death and His Resurrection.  We hope for all of us that we might remember Him better this year and carry the gratitude of this season far into 2010!

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4 thoughts on “Christmas – How did you spend your day?

    • Author gravatar

      sounds like a great day! how was the movie?? we might have shown up for dinner if only we were invited 😉 jk

    • Author gravatar

      We wish you would have come to dinner!! You are always invited, no formally invitations needed!! The movie was good – a Disney princess movie with good music and a love story …

    • Author gravatar

      christmas eve was great! we really had a good time. thanks for having such a great party.

    • Author gravatar

      I left a comment on Sarah’s blog and only later realized that it was more appropriately directed to you and Tom. Your Christmas Eve celebrations sounded exceptional and I think we need to put in an order for a similar celebration for Christmas another year. In any case we are so grateful that so many of you share important times like these as a family even is all of us cannot be there. We love all of you. By the way I love your observations on your new calling. You know the old saying “The Lord qualifies those whom he calls” and I believe that is profoundly true. This new stretching will be a blessing to you for years to come. I love you. Mom

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