My Christmas

I promised pictures of our stockings. I think they are so cute. I just love Maddie's stocking we got her last year.

I'm so tired, so very tired. I'm glad that this holiday is over. It wasn't as bad as I thought, but we were constantly going and going and going. Christmas eve started out ok until we got a call at 10 AM from Rob's dad asking why we weren't at the grandparents' house yet and when are we getting there. The problem with that was the fact that we discussed what we were doing Christmas eve on Saturday and none of the discussions included going over to the grandparents' house as a group. We were planning a late lunch with Rob's parents at their house so my schedule had been set up around that. We have been told time and time again that in order to not put too much stress on Grandma we would visit in smaller groups during the day so they could rest between visits. So here I am sitting in my pj's working on my overheads for the 3 Christmas eve services that evening, and here comes a call completely throwing my day into to chaos. We finally got over there at 2 something after I ran the errands I had to run because those places would be closed by the time I got out of church.

I had to go by CVS and pick up some pictures that I ordered online. Only to get there and those idiots weren't able to find them. They looked and looked, but couldn't figure out what happened to them. One girl kept saying that somepeople were having problems with the pictures not getting to the store even though they are supposed to be sent to the store's computer and automatically printed out. They could even pull up my order on their system and view the pictures, but couldn't find the damn things. They had me wait for over 20 minutes, and they finally found them the 1st place they looked. This was the 1st time I used CVS online picture center and it will be the last time. All in all we did have a nice visit and exchanged gifts, but I still hate being rushed! I make all these nice schedules and plans and people always throw a wrench in them.

I did luck out and only have to run 2 of the 3 services that night so we were able to spend more time with Rob's grandparents and uncle. I am glad that I got to run the traditional service because it was beautiful. One of our groups, The 2 Tenors, sang "O Holy Night" and they sounded amazing. That's one of my favorite Christmas songs so I was in bliss listening to them. Then I had a little break until the last service at 7 which was our contemporary service. The GAP band sounded great even though it was only 4 of them there that night. I just love those guys!
I thought ahead this year and ordered a small sandwich tray for Rob and I to have for dinner after church. We usually end up eating crap since most places close at 6 on Christmas eve, and we don't get out of church until after 8. So we did get a chance to just chill out that night, watch A Christmas Story, and wrap gifts which was relaxing after that day of running and aggravation.

Christmas day was much better. We slept until 9 then got up and cooked some cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I started watching A Christmas Story again which drove Rob crazy. He can't understand how I can watch it back to back to back for hours and hours. We opened our gifts to each other. I got a beautiful bracelet with "If tears can build a stairway, and memories a lane. I'd walk right up to heaven and bring you home again." engraved on it. I also got new pink headphones and pair of blue Naruto ninja shoes. I can't wait to wear them with a costume. I got Rob some squirrel stuff which he loves. And a couple of t-shirts with references to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and D&D on them. The dogs got big chicken basted rawhide bones, and they LOVED them! Olaf followed me around all morning showing me his bone and just wagging his little stump of tail.

We had dinner with my family which was wonderful. The food was so good especially the portabella and cracked pepper pork loin I made :) We exchanged gifts, and got a lot of things we had been hoping for. I'm especially excited about the new George Foreman programmable grill my dad got us. Since we're back on the weight loss bandwagon this will come in very handy. We took our first family picture in years. I think it turned out pretty good.That evening we went to visit my dad's mom in the hospital. I haven't seen her since Christmas 2005. I never really intended on seeing her, but I couldn't really make up an excuses since I was already at my parents' house and they were going to see her. I've held a grudge since Maddie passed away simply because I never heard from her at all. No call, no card, no message through another family member. She was all hog wild over her other great-grandkids, but I feel like Madison didn't matter to her since she only lived a short while. My other complaint was that she didn't even call or ask about me. I almost died, but she didn't care enough to say anything. But I have to be the mature one and put that aside at least for one day. So it's done. I did it.

Rob and I went by his parents' house for a while and had some egg nog. But we made sure to get home in time to play some Wii before bedtime. So all in all my Christmas was pretty good. I'm glad that it's over because now I can look forward to 2008. I pray that it will be a much better year for us, and hopefully there will be 3 of us in our house for Christmas '08.