Oh, where to even begin? I can’t remember what I mentioned already, so if I repeat myself – well, you’ll know it’s business as usual. I’ll try not to make it too long, okay?

I suppose I should mention that this was the first Christmas I didn’t have all my kids together. Addison travelled around the countryside with Kaytlyn (his girlfriend) to visit her family on her limited days off. We soldiered on through without him. Well, not entirely – Christmas lasts a week to twelve days in our family, not just one day, so we did see him and he eventually came home.

But let’s backtrack: we had Christmas Eve dinner at my mom’s where I brought the best ever chicken balls and my famous won ton soup.

We continued the meal of more Chinese food with the traditional wearing of the silly hats after snapping the Christmas crackers:

and with the prizes therein, the girls had a small game of cards.

Eventually, we got to the stockings my mom makes up for the kids, along with new pajamas for them. She must have been kinda testy I told her not to do one for me and Ron this time, so she got Emma a litle silver bell.

Then she told Emma that true princess have bells to ring when they need service. At the time, I asked my mom if she truly hated me, but she said it was payback. The bell has since gone missing.

Back at home, we opened one present each after we brought the remaining presents out. I always wait until Emma goes to bed to place hers under the tree, and Ron waits until everyone is in bed before he brings out his torments.

Yeah, Santa was pretty busy. Emma was wired, so Santa tucked her in bed.

Somehow I forgot to take a lot of pictures of the present-opening. I was tired, and I was enjoying watching everyone else. We got up relatively late too, like 8 am. mom and Carl had been up for hours waiting for us to call and say to come over with their pile of stuff. Oh I almost forgot – I woke up that day with a very sore wrist. Sore enough it was almost unusable and it was my dominant hand. I think maybe it was rebelling it hadn’t been near a computer mouse as much as it usually is.

Ron did indeed have an unidentifiable present for me. It was rather tall, heavy and square at the bottom, flat and crinkly at the top. Turns out it was a tripod for the camera, wrapped in a cracker box which was then rolled up in a large piece of plotter paper. When I got to that part, I said, “Aw honey, you got me a database diagram! Just what I wanted!”

We had been tormenting each other in the days leading up to this, and when he opened his deluxe special edition of the A&E production of Pride & Predjudice, he told me he though it might be the more recent one. I had slipped up in a romantic mood and called him Mr. Darcy. Ooops.

I can tell you I wrestled with getting him that, as it was over budget. I exclaimed over it in the store, saying out loud, “This would be perfect for my hubby!” The lady next to me glanced over and quipped, “And is he getting you tools for Christmas?”

At any rate, we’ve finally watched the whole thing and will review it later. The kids got a medium-sized haul, not too much and only one thing got broke. The poor fairy may never walk again with a broken pelvis.

Mom and Carl came back for dinner. I had prepped a lot of the veggies the day before, when my wrist didn’t hurt at all, plus Ron and the kids all pitched in to help bring supper to the table. Truth be known, Ron always helps out when we put on a big dinner. We also had Julia, Carls’ daughter, and Julia’s mom over for dinner. Yes, that would be Carl’s ex-wife. Carl is now married to my mom. Welcome to our strange family.

The menu was a mixed green salad with raspberries and pine nuts, with a raspberry vinagrette, a small roast chicken, gravy, scotch eggs (hard boiled eggs coated in sausage meat and baked), mashed potatoes, a lentil loaf for the veggie eaters, roasted winter veggies – turnip, parsnips and carrots with onions, some of the same veggies boiled, peas, brussel sprouts, potato stuffing, and cranberry stuffing done in muffin cups. Dessert was pumpkin pie, assorted squares and sweets and fruit.

Emma thinks Julia is one of the awesomest persons she knows, so she dragged her all over the house to see everything she owns. I also gave the ladies a tour of the work we’ve done on the house. While looking in the bathroom, Julia exclaimed that our mirror was hung rather low. It’s at the perfect height for most of our family, but for the Amazon, well, she had to scrunch down to see the top of her head.
“I just have to get down a little more to your level…”

“But it’s fine for us… I can’t help it if we’re all short…”

“Let me scooch a little lower…”

“MOOOOOOOooooMMM! Julia’s making fun of me again! Make her stop!” And then I stuck my tongue out at her reflection.

That was Christmas Day.