Happy New Year!!! I can't believe it is 2008! Where does time go? The last month was very full, with recovery from surgery in the midst of all of the holiday hubbub. Dave did the lion's share of shopping & wrapping, and we also had help from my women's group and of course our family.
Although we couldn't celebrate our regular traditions to the extent that we prefer, we still had lots of good times. Usually St. Nick comes to our home on the evening of December 6, but for some reason he couldn't this year! We aren't quite sure why he didn't show, but as Evie so aptly put it, "Wow! First time in all these years that we didn't follow our tradition, and we lived!!" True. We lived! It is interesting how stockings appeared mysteriously a couple of weeks later though...but Epiphany wasn't celebrated with our usual cake (with three foil balls that determine our kings that year), or with our C-M-B (Caspar, Melchoir & Balthazaar) blessings...hopefully we can still do that!
Our annual time with Dave's mom & siblings on Christmas Eve was really fun. The white elephant gift exchange is always enjoyable, and this year Tony was #1. He liked that! He ended up with a russian hat and a russian bottle of vodka, (which he promptly gave to Mike as a Christmas present)! That gift was quite a hit as it came all the way from Moscow where my nephew Ryan is an embassy guard with the Marines. We then went to Midnight Mass for the first time! We attended Holy Trinity Student Parish. It was so inspiring for me. They began with several Christmas carols, sung beautifully, and it really brought me into Christ's presence. I'm so glad we went.
Christmas Day is traditionally very low-key, happy, chill-out time for all of us. The older kids come home early, if they haven't spent the night here, and we begin our activities around 9am. It is so fun having Sebastian here--he loves the present opening time! It is such a blessing to have all the kids here and to have that time together as a family. Every one of us looks forward to it. Later in the afternoon some of us went to my moms, where we celebrated with her & others who came.
I'll save other stories for another time so that you don't get blog-bogged! Hey, did I just create a cool catch-phrase?
