After my cancer surgery on December 12th, I went home to stay with my parents to get some help while I recovered. It was so nice to be home with the girls and make some fun crafts. Mr. McDuff and grandma's elf named Snowflake even visited the girls at grandma's house and had a little campfire.
We even got to decorate Christmas sugar cookies! I didn't think this tradition would happen this year since I have been too sick to make cookies, but a neighbor brought them which was a blessing.
Another blessing we received was some gifts for the girls and I from Rebecca Colley's grandson's charity he started called Give2Give. I was in shock when they had given me gas money cards, Ivie gift cards as well as renewed my gym membership pass!
Christmas Eve: We colored a page of our Christmas book like we do every year. Unfortunately, due to the pain I was in from the cancer I was not able to do our normal visits to the in-laws, but instead had a night with just our little family. We colored, had hot chocolate, and watched Christmas movies together.
One of my favorite things about this Christmas was Brynnley's recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies. The ingredients she listed included: Like 10 Choc chips, some green juice, apples, 1 c. flour, and 2 cups of sugar. I love that she included the "green juice"! She won't drink it but knows that that is what mom has been living on for the past month since having severe stomach pain. She is a sweetheart!
Christmas morning:
The girls were so excited to wake up on Christmas and were up at 6 AM. The joy and excitement in their little faces is so fun to watch. Christmas is truly magical in their eyes.
Christmas morning breakfast was cinnamon buns from Great Harvest and Hot Coco.
Christmas at Grandma Susie's house.
We are so blessed to have tons of gifts and every Christmas morning growing up we would wake up to a room so full of presents that we could not even walk! It still is a little disappointing to wake up as an adult and not have mountains of presents I grew up with. (Of course the presents were for the entire extended family too)
Brynnley was obsessed with Mr. McDuff this year and has always been a little afraid of him. We explained to Brynn that he was Grandma Susie's and my elf at Grandma P's when we were little. Brynnley held him so carefully and wanted to go everywhere with him.
Christmas was a wonderful day visiting with all the family! Around 1 pm I started to get really sick, (probably because I had to have a few bites of Mom's quiche that we only get at Christmas). I ended up sleeping in my parents bedroom and missed out on Grandma Joans dinner but got to spend some one on one time with my Mom.
Some of my favorite memories of Christmas time when growing up include: waking up in the middle of the night to open our stockings since Dad usually had to go to the fire station. Mom would spend hours on end cooking for days making her yummy quiches, cinnamon roll and sticky bun Christmas trees, Kneaders French Toast with carmel. As a kid we woke up and had to wait for my Mom to play her "Christmas song" while we ran out to see the tree. I always remember waking up to a huge pile and room so full of presents that we couldn't even walk! We used to have all the grandparents and family come over and spend most of the day opening presents and playing with our new toys. We would also go to Grandma Joan's house for Christmas dinner with the other side of the family. Usually we were so exhausted by dinner we just wanted to go home and sleep with our new toys. Christmas is still one of my favorite holidays with all the joy, magical feelings in the air and it is even better now to watch my sweet girls excitement with all the small things of the holiday time.
