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We had a nice quiet fairly laid-back Christmas this year. Some pictures and highlights:  After a MUCH needed hiatus for a couple of years as "She Who Makes The Gifts" I was back in the saddle again. I'm really quite happy with how my gifts turned out, but since we still need to deliver some (many) of them, this is the only picture you get!  As I was packing up gifts, I noticed that my "Merry Christmas" was starting to look VERY much like the letters we received as kids that were "from Santa" and it made me smile.  All the gifties wrapped up and ready to go! (We still have to deliver SO MANY of these!) Anyway, I thought my wrapping of origami boxes decorated with silver marker and all wrapped with yarn were pretty dang cute.  Of course I wore a silly hat! (Handmade fleece loooong hat I bought from a fellow vendor at a craft show a few years ago) You can't expect me to elf properly without an appropriate hat! Annual last minute "Christmas Elf" shopping trip with the whole family! We never invested a whole lot of effort in keeping up the "Santa" ruse with our kids, and being smarty pants, they figured it out pretty quick. In past years we have let them be "elves" for each other and fill their sibling's stockings. These trips almost always happened on Christmas Eve, because we're great big procrastinators it was a fun thing to do on Christmas Eve. I've always loved getting a stocking on Christmas morning, so this year the entire family drew names for whose stocking they were responsible for filling up. We gave everyone a general limit for how much to spend, but SOMEBODY *cough The Dad Elf *cough* takes after HIS Dad and enjoys treating his kids, so he blithely ignored that stipulation. Naughty. Also, I kind of wanted to just hug some of the people in the store and tell them to calm down, it was going to be okay, even if Christmas didn't end up being perfect. So many of them looked so very stressed out. Eldest child and I ended up staying up until 3:30 poking around on the NORAD Santa tracker. We started looking at the maps around our area, but then it glitched and we ended up above Africa, so we spent some time checking out pictures of cities in the southern part of that continent! Some really lovely places, we both talked about how we would like to travel more!  Our dreams of a white Christmas were fulfilled - it started snowing on Christmas Eve, and by the morning we had a blanket of white several inches deep. I love the snow, and it was so very pretty. (Now if we could just make it disappear from the roads...)  In the morning, I told Glenn that we really ought to get up and out of bed so, ahem, the kids could stop waiting to open their stockings. He was not fooled, and noted that it definitely sounded like someone wanted to open her stocking, at any rate. My spoils included cute purple gloves, licorice snaps, AND the tenth Doctor. (Doctor Who, for all you non-geeky peeps) Well done, my elf!  Glenn got the Twelfth Doctor, so of course they had to hang out together. (insert brag about what an awesome elf I was here.)  Christmas breakfast of Pop-Tarts and coffee, because we're fancy like that. Actually, there is a longstanding argument between my sister and I. She insists that we always had Orange Danish on Christmas morning. My memories distinctly say we always had Pop-Tarts, because we were too excited to eat a big breakfast. (Brown Sugar and Cinnamon ones, ALWAYS) Our mom, being the peacemaker she is just always makes sure to have both whenever both the sis and I are going to be at our folks' house for Christmas.  After a morning spent at home, it was Over the River and Through the Woods to Grandmother's house. Or, you know, through the backyard and up the deck to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Christmas dinner. Glenn and the younger kid shoveled a pathway for us. I think they actually used the hockey sticks, because we apparently don't have a snow shovel. But hockey sticks? Yeah, we have a couple of those. Kiddo did get a slapshot of snow to the face, but Glenn swears it was an accident.  The most precious gift we received for Christmas. Grandma VS (Glenn's grandma) passed away a couple of days before Christmas, and this was our gift from her. (It makes me so happy to see it hanging in my kitchen now!) It is sad to lose someone around Christmas, but we also have so very many good memories about her and Grandpa VS, especially around Christmastime. We enjoyed many Christmas dinners at their house surrounded by family and enjoying giving pats to the sweet doggies that were underfoot, and always spent time admiring the Christmas village that they set up for the holidays. (Glenn gifted them with a little ceramic house that was a building from the movie "It's a Wonderful Life," and pretty soon all of Bedford Falls was laid out by their windows. We will miss her, and will always remember her kindness, humor, and love.
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