Merry Christmas, part 1

We have had a wonderful Christmas and hope all of you have as well. I have a lot of pictures to share, but will break it up into several posts since it takes so long to upload photos to blogger. We'll start with Christmas Eve...



Here is everyone before we left for church and the Christmas pageant.

We always host Christmas Eve dinner after the pageant. We had 23 sitting down, plus the baby girls. J.'s two sisters and their families and a Japanese grad student and his family joined us.


On Christmas morning everyone waits upstairs until things are ready. (Meaning the coffee is made and I have my contacts in so I can see.) Then the children line up youngest to oldest and come downstairs. This is a tradition from J.'s family; I had no stairs in my house growing up. The babies slept horribly that night, so J. and I had been up for several hours already. Everyone else started to wake up at the more reasonable hour of 7:45.



Gifts under the tree being examined.






The first thing we do after coming downstairs is light the candles in the advent wreath and the center Christ candle and have a prayer.


M. with G. (on left) and L. (on right)





Opening stockings.
To be continued...

Comments

LawMommy said…
So much about the woodwork in your house (particularly the three large windows that can be seen behind your head in the one shot of all of you by the table) and the staircase - remind me of the house I grew up in.

My five siblings and I also lined up down the staircase when we came down on Christmas morning.

It looks like you had a lovely holiday.
12/26/2009 7:23 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Making bias tape... otherwise known as the Sew, Mama, Sew! Giveaway

Image
( Sorry, the contest is now closed .... though you're welcome to leave a comment if you like.) [This picture has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but is here solely to give Blogger a different photo to post in the thumbnail.] It's Sew, Mama, Sew Giveaway time again.  I love bias tape.  It is so useful and so easy to use... finishing edges ... finishing seams ...  And while the pre-packaged stuff has it's place and I use it often, I really like to have patterned bias tape as well.  Enter one of my favorite little tools: the bias tape maker.  This one make 3/4 inch bias tape and I will be giving one away at the end of this post.  But first, I thought some of you might like to see what it does if you've never used one before. I don't have a rotary cutter, nice cutting mats, or even a proper cutting table (I cut-out things on my floor), so if I can do this, so can you.  Here is my admittedly quirky method. Step 1:  Lay out the fabric and fold a corner ove
Read more

An uncomfortable post

I hope it comes as no surprise to my readers that when I vote early next week I will be casting my ballot for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Being in a blue state this feels as though it is a very little thing in the effort to bring our country back past the brink of no return . I'll be honest and say that I am feeling such stress and fear about this election that I can't listen to any news or look at social media for very long. The radio is pretty firmly set on our classical music station even though they are in the middle of a pledge drive. The pledge drive is preferable.  But for those of you who are supporting the other side, if there are any of you left who continue to visit my blog, here is what I need to say. When I drive around and see signs in people's yards supporting that man, I treat it as an early warning system. The people who live in this house are not safe for my family to be around. This is far more than a difference of opinion. That worked for all the preside
Read more

Sew, Mama, Sew! Giveaway

Image
Sew, Mama, Sew! is hosting another giveaway day , the day where many bloggers giveaway things they have made or supplies to make things or both.  It is great fun to visit a lot of blogs and try to win cool stuff.  So fun that I thought I would participate this year. I had great hopes of making a set of coordinating mother/daughter aprons.  But reality reared its ugly head and I came to terms with the fact that my time is not limitless.Instead of aprons,  I must continue to spend quality time with yards and yards of red plaid flannel.  What am I making?  Well, as I tell my children, it is the season not to ask questions... I will be able to let you know sometime after the 25th. Instead of making something, I went to my favorite thrift store and found some supplies in the form of sheets and pillowcases (some of my favorite raw material).  I'm giving away three pillowcases and one twin flat sheet. I decided to go with bright, springy colors, because if you are anything like
Read more