Christmas has come and gone for another year. We had a really good Christmas, as always, but a busy one this year. We saw our first living nativity this year, the weekend before Christmas. It was very cold, but a great production by a church near our house (not our church though). I had been to a drive-by live nativity years ago, but never a big production like this. We both really enjoyed it 🙂
We went and got our teenaged niece and nephew (Brittany and Zack) a few days before Christmas, and they stayed a couple of days with us. We ate out (a LOT!). We watched The Karate Kid on DVD. We played the Wii. We went to see Tron: Legacy at the movie theater in 3-D. We went to Lifeway to get new devotionals for the new year. We had a great time with them, and hope they come back next summer!
Friday, Christmas Eve, went all loaded up and headed to Tim’s parents. We played games, for the first time, as a way to pick our gifts. We gave gifts to the parents and kids, but amongst the siblings and spouses, we played games for points and then did a form of dirty Santa (although with 3 guys and 3 girls, it wasn’t all that dirty!). I got a nice lighted snowman for my gift (I love snowmen!). Saturday, Christmas Day, we drove to my sister Gail’s house and spent the day with that side of the family. My nephew Trent, his wife Shanna and their 3 kids were here (first time we had seen them in over 2 years). We missed seeing Jeremy, Kathryn and their kids (and new puppy!), but saw everyone else. Gail treated us all to a non-traditional Christmas dinner (chicken spaghetti, bread and layered salad), which was wonderful and so nice to have for a change. Don’t get me wrong, I love turkey, but this was great for something different 🙂
Sunday, the day after Christmas, Tim and I finally had our little Christmas at home. He got the new Taylormade golf driver he had been wanting (and helped me order, and has been playing with for a couple of weeks, LOL), some clothes and things. I got new Snow Village pieces (fun, my first ones in like 10 years!), a hoodie, a Yankee candle and some truffles. Wonderful Christmas! While we were opening presents, it snowed some, nice flurries that didn’t stick, but still awesome. It never snows here around Christmas!
I also ran to Target the day after, for my annual run for paper, cards and bows. I never buy them before Christmas for full price, I always wait until afterwards and stock up for next year. I also bought some garland (half price) for our mantle, something we’ve been wanting for a while. We bought lights earlier for it, but never got the garland. So next year, it will be fun to pull all of that out and decorate with it 🙂
Oh, and the day after Christmas, in Target, they already had Valentines items in the dollar spot! LOL!
Hope you all had a joyful and blessed Christmas! We did, and I’m sure we’ll have a quiet New Years Eve and weekend. I’ll plan to take the tree and decorations down before New Years. My mom always thought it was “bad luck” to have it up on the new year. Personally, I think she just didn’t like to have it around any longer, and wanted the clutter and mess gone – and I’m sort of the same way, LOL!