Christmas 2009

Another Christmas in the rear view mirror. It’s a long and careful preparation for the best celebration of the year, and it’s all worth it. We drove up to Layton early Christmas morning and visited Stephanie, Sydney, and Mary at their home in Layton for a while. They a Skype connection to Brian on the internet and we felt like he was in the room with us, too. That was really neat. Then we drove down to visit Jenny and Ryan and the kids. The house was full of happy children, fun toys, and good food. How blessed we are to have so much. We then drove over to Jason and Libby’s home and visited for a while. The kids all seemed excited about the gifts they had gotten and their home was also full of the feeling of Christmas. We are so grateful for the goodness of our family.

We got back home about 1:30 and had some lunch. Steve took a nap and I worked in the office a while. About 4:30 Curtis, Kelly and Katelyn, and Matthew, Natalie, Aubrey and Mackenzie came by for a visit. We had ham and cheese rolls with side dishes set out and everyone had a bite to eat. Then we exchanged gifts and visited for a while. I especially like the part about opening gifts. When you give a gift to one of the girls (Katelyn, Aubrey, and Mackenzie) to open, they tear it open, smile and get excited about it, and then hand it to their mom and turn back and say, “Can I have another one to open?” I’m not sure if it is more exciting for them to receive the gift or just to tear open the gift.

After the presents were all opened, the girls all wanted to watch Katelyn’s new Strawberry Shortcake video. So while they watched the video the rest of us played hand and foot and snacked on pumpkin rolls, pies, bread and spinach dip, toffee popcorn, and crackers and dip. This was a good Christmas for Steve and me.