Christmas Eve is full of expectation and wonder. I love the anticipation of it all. The planning, shopping, decorating and cooking and this year was no different. Terry and I arrived at the Farm with Shirley and Jasper in tow late in the evening closer to Christmas Day than to Christmas Eve. We were greeted with joyous hugs and excitement. There was a crackling fire in the fireplace and presents everywhere.
The house was decked in holiday finery, every room garlanded or bedazzled. Our bedrooms were cozy and inviting drawing us into their snuggly comfort while each bed was adorned with a set of brand new Christmas pj’s for all the good little boys and girls.
We finally settled down for our long winters nap around 2am which was quite difficult amidst all the adrenaline fueled excitement. Fortunately for the adults, we did manage to bypass rising at the crack of dawn and slumbered until 7:00am or so.
Apparently all the kiddie poos were excellent this year because the tree was laden with gifts galore. It was a smorgasbord of gift giving. Levi was excited to see that Santa made a stop and while we awaited the arrival of Roy, Leah, Lily and Elijah we oohed and aahed over our stockings while enjoying Dad’s homemade cinnamon rolls and hot cups of coffee.
Adding to the festivities, Bill, Amy, Carson and Curtis also joined us this morning for our Christmas jubilation.
The best line of the whole day occurred when Janice noticed Lily and Levi eating handfuls of M&M’s that were sitting on the kitchen counter in an antique chicken feeder. Janice called out and told them to get their hands out of the chicken feeder. Now that’s not something you hear everyday.
Again this year, Jill found fun Minute to Win It games for us all to play. The first game entailed us smearing petroleum jelly on our the tip of our noses, placing a Rudolph nose attached to a string in our mouth and then trying to catapult said red nose on top of our Vaseline coated noses. Tricky indeed. The next game required loading a chopstick with ten lug nuts and then steadily stacking them one on top of the other. Lastly, we repeated our sharp shooting contest from last year which was a ton of fun. Josh was the big winner of the whole rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ hoe down.
It’s difficult to sum up in just a few words how amazing it is for all of us to be together for Christmas. We are creating a legacy of loving, giving and sharing and are privileged to forge these memories for our precious little ones, Lily, Levi and Elijah.
