Is It Naptime Yet

My friend Anna recently did a posts on Christmas memories and I made a little comment because she asked us to comment on our favorite Christmas memories. Here’s my comment:

My favorite has always been sneaking out to see the tree at night after Santa had come and eating one or two treats from my stocking. I loved sitting and looking at the lit tree with all the lights out.

I may actually not put the child’s gate up this year and maybe my girls will enjoy this too, though in some ways they are so good it might take a year or two.

So this year I’m going to relinquish some power and not put up the child’s gate. Jon doesn’t like them sneaking and poking around, so he’s thinking of maybe putting up a curtain, so they can peak out the curtain, but hopefully not go past it. This is a tradition his family has and as a child he never actually went past the curtain, just peeked. I find this somewhat amazing, but I think my girls would take after him since they do have a tendency to really respect what we ask them to do.

Taking Anna’s lead I want to share some of my favorite Christmas memories.:

Staying up late waiting for Santa to come.

Exchanging gifts with my siblings.

My dad driving us around to go look at Christmas lights so Mom could wrap presents. I think of my Dad whenever we look at lights with my girls. Their enthusiasm reminds me of my own.

Picking out Christmas tree’s with my dad each year. I always went with him and got the last say. I don’t know if he taught me well or just made it feel like I picked the perfect one each year. Every once-in-a-while another sister got to come along, which I didn’t like too much, but I still got the last say.

Making decorated sugar cookies for my friends.

Our Christmas Tree Angel. My parents have the perfect angel for their tree, just simple, not extravagant with big wings. I wish I could find one just like it.

Our house on Base decorated with lights and a manger scene.

Silent Night, and not knowing if my sister’s catholic boyfriend knew the song. I can  be a bit air-heady at times.

The one Christmas I didn’t wake up in the middle of the night and had gotten a new bike.

Turning out all the lights and watching the Christmas tree glimmer with it’s lights on.

One year my dad set up the camera to record for 2 or so seconds every 10 or so seconds and we watched as we peeked in the presents and our bodies appeared at different places in the room.

Wrapping presents that my dad bought my mom.

5 years or so of plain red and green wrapping paper my dad had gotten somewhere. We wrapped the new computer in it the first year and it lasted f.o.r.e.v.e.r. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was still some hanging around or if my mom just tossed it.

My dad being able to return things, but us having to keep things we didn’t like unless they didn’t fit or were broken.

Peeking around for where the Christmas gifts were hid.

Unwrapping gifts once in a while and re-wrapping them.

Learning mom’s secret code on how to tell what gift belonged to who since it had no name tag. Lets just say each of our names start with different letters and D was for Dad, since our names both start with L.

What are some of your favorite Christmas memories?

Each year we try to have Thanksgiving with both of our families. It’s nice because we don’t have to prepare a huge feast, but we also get to see both our families.

This year we headed over to my parents first and helped to set up. It was a rather small bunch this year, with only 8 of us total. My parents, Glenn, Carolyn and my family of four. Since we only had two children and we could all fit at one table, the girls got to sit with the adults and eat off of my parents china, though they didn’t get the glass steam ware. I’ll have to take a picture of my parents China, but it’s from Germany and about 35 years old. Since I grew up on this china, it’s exactly what I envision my China to look like, but the problem being it’s from Germany and it’s 35 years old.

My mom fixed a wonderful meal and it was fun to sit and be with family.

We left about 3:30 to head over to Annie’s house for the Blake family dinner. I had baked two pies that morning so we stopped and picked them up on our way there. I made the pumpkin from scratch, as in a baked and mashed the pumpkin I used in the pie, though it was a store bought crust since pie crust intimidates me still. Then I baked an apple pie just like the one I made last year from the apple pie filling Sam and I canned last year. Both were pretty good, though I’m not a big pumpkin pie fan I’ve decided. I like banana cream.

My mother-in-law’s sister and husband were in town for the Blake Thanksgiving and needed somewhere to stay for the night so we offered our small home. We stayed up and talked with them for a bit. I think they thought our girls were a little odd since they both wanted some vegetable before they went to bed. Eden had grabbed some mushrooms and Lilah some carrots and you just can’t say no it’s too late to eat vegetables, so I let them eat ’em.

They had asked what time the sun came up so they could be off and running early, but we thought we’d still be able to make them a nice breakfast before the left. When Jon woke up at 6:40 am they had already packed up and left! I don’t know if we were terrible host or if they were the best house guests, but we were a little sad to see they had left so early and we hadn’t even noticed. ( We now know we can fit a queen size air mattress in our living room if anyone wants to stay here, though  it’s very “cozy”.)

I then enjoyed the weekend with Carolyn, so as to stay out of Jon’s hair so he could study.