Monday, December 25, 2006

Is It Called "Mellowing With Age" or "Going Soft In The Head"??

I used to think that I was being a great Mom when I made my boys always go to bed at a decent hour - no matter the circumstances, and never eat much junk food - even if it's Christmas. But last night (Christmas Eve) I felt like a great Mom because I told them they could stay up as late as they wanted and eat "all" (with a bit of guidance) the food they wanted. My, how things change!

Last night was the Christmas Eve service at church. I felt pretty good about how it went. Emily did a slide show to go with all of the songs, scripture, and narration. That really made an impact, I think. It was a good evening and I'm so glad the Gospel was shared! Afterwards, I wanted to head home with my tired baby, and people stayed around and talked and talked. It's so interesting that people don't seem to care about rushing home even when it's Christmas Eve. It was great to see a bunch of former Red-Lakers: All the Leonard Hochstedlers, a bunch of Nisly's, some Ramers...

We had invited some people over after the service. Not all of them came, but we had a nice time with Josiah, AnneJisca, Dad and Dru. The menu: shrimp ring, crunchy cheese dip and crackers, hot broccoli dip with baguette bread, veggies and dip, assorted cookies and candy, meat and cheese tray, sausage rolls, egg nog, punch and coffee. Now, how much of that 15 pounds am I going to keep off?? The boys managed to stay up until we went to bed at 11:30!! Madness!

The boys did sleep in a bit this morning. We had a good, (mostly) relaxing Christmas day. We had our big, traditional breakfast (pancakes, eggs, sausauge - from Baduik's of course) and then Keith made us clean up the dishes before we could open presents. (Can you believe it?!?) We sang a few songs and then had fun opening presents. We didn't clean up the paper and junk until late afternoon. :-) We sat around, played with our toys, ate more yummy food, and I made some carrot cakes because we wanted to do a birthday cake for Jesus. (I figured making cake was playing with my new toys since I got some silicone scrapers and a stainless steel compost bucket!) Derek stopped in for a visit too, which was nice. Around 2:30 or 3:00 we got motivated (and I got dressed) and took plates of cookies around to some of our neighbors. It was quite fun, once we got started. Why is it so hard to step out to meet people?? After that we had to rush around a bit to get to Grandpa Graber's for supper. Yummy supper, more presents, etc. We watched the boys' new Veggie Tales DVD on Keith's computer. Grandpa and Grandma seemed to enjoy it too!

Now Keith is on an ambulance call and I'm sitting at the computer while the house is in absolute shambles around me. So, I think I'll go to bed! As long as all the food is in the fridge, what does it matter?? We'll clean up the mess tomorrow and maybe go sliding... Don't know yet. Meanwhile, Mom and Dad G. gave me a new Bodie Thoene book, so I think I need to go to bed and read it! :-) Merry Christmas!!! I hope the wonder of Christmas - the birth of our Saviour - stays with all of us for a long time!!!

6 comments:

Rhonda said...

sounds like a nice day. it's tues AM now and we are recovering. :) my girls' emotions are a bit tired yet. thankfully we don't have any big plans.

Anonymous said...

You know what I did yesterday? Got up at 4 a.m., was in airports from 6 a.m. to noon. Slept for 2 hours when I got home, unpacked for an hour, vegged on the computer for 2 hours, and then read for 2 hours. Not the typical Christmas Day, I know. : )

Wendy Yutzy said...

Good morning Jenni! Now can we cook normal again? Or was that not cook at all?

Anonymous said...

Wendy, I think that should be Not Cook At All!! There's so much food in our fridge that everyone old enough could fend for themselves very well. =) I'm so proud of you Jenni for litening up and enjoying life and letting your kids enjoy it with you!!

AnneJisca said...

Thanks so much for having us over, Jenni! We quite enjoyed it. I was having a bit of a hard time with Christmas this year as it was just the two of us. Being used to doing most of the celebrating on Christmas eve, being at your place was so nice and helped so much. =) Thank you!!!

Jenni said...

Hehehe! I'm doing this from the Holiday Inn in International Falls. We have wireless internet here! Cool! We're here for a few days with my family. We have pool-side rooms and the soup is in the crockpot for supper. :-)