December 29, 2006--Christmas

Well, Christmas is over for another year. We had a good Christmas overall, although it was overshadowed by septic problems. We've had so much rain lately that the drains don't want to go down. They are finally starting to get better today. We are really praying for no rain, but I think we're supposed to get more this weekend. It's just awful. We were thankful that at least on the worst days of it, we were at our parents' houses for most of the day. On Christmas Eve we went to church in the morning, and then made cheese crackers in the afternoon and watched "A Christmas Story." I had heard from a lot of people how funny it was, but I was disappointed that there was so much language in it. I had wondered why there was a Christmas classic out there that I had never seen, now I know why I had never seen it. We put the kids in bed early that night, at 6:45. It was dark and they didn't realize it was that early! Timothy wasn't fooled, though. He stayed up until 9:00 and helped us stuff Christmas stockings. He sampled everything we put in them. Christmas morning we woke the kids up at about 5:00. We had our presents open before 7:00. We went to my parents' house at 11:00 and stayed there until 4:30. My mom made razzlebery dressing. I don't know what all was in it, but I do know it had raspberries and meat in it. I didn't try any. My sister did, and she said it was gross. I figured if I didn't try it I didn't have to tell Mom it was gross! Everything else she made was good, though. Especially the lemon merangue pie. We did the gift exchange, and I got a pair of slippers from Rachel, which was exactly what I wanted. Of course, I whispered in her ear before she went shopping with Daddy, "Make sure to buy me some slippers!" That evening we went to Erick's maternal grandparents' house and ate. She's the one who is such a wonderful cook. All the kids got various games like "Hangman" and "Connect Four". They will enjoy those. We also visited with his great-grandmother, who is 95 now. She is still very sharp mentally, but physically is becoming weaker than ever. She said she doesn't think she'll live to see her 96th birthday. On the day after Christmas, Erick brought home a table from someone at church who was moving and needed to get rid of it. It's a really nice table, and all of our chairs actually fit under it! It's solid wood. It looks so nice in the kitchen. The one we had was one that belonged to the owner's of the house before they left, and it was in bad shape. The one we used to have we had put in the garage and it mildewed. So we're happy to have a good, solid table! (Now, if only I had matching chairs!) That afternoon we went to see Erick's paternal grandmother, and also his uncle from Californial who was out visiting, and then we went to his parents' church. The family is so big now on that side that his mother felt it would be best just to reserve the church for the family Christmas party. There was so much food, and I overate. We took a lot of pictures. Erick took some, too. He took a bunch of me eating pistachio pudding, for some reason. I laughed when I was going through them, at how many pictures there were with me somewhere in the picture eating pudding with an expression on my face that said, "I have already eaten too much pudding. Why am I still eating this?"