Christmas day dawned bright and sunny. I LOVE sunny days when there’s snow on the ground and it’s NOT snowing. The kids agreed to wait until 8:00 am to go down, and we were grateful. Here’s Jenna discovering the BIG inflatable remote control fish. Oh, yes, and there’s our lovely Christmas tree.
Funny story about that fish. Since this Christmas we were trying to stick to a budget, I discovered quite a few presents hidden around my office, bedroom closet, and other places. I had ordered this fish blimp last year with the intent to give it to Cole for his birthday. It didn’t come in time so it’s been sitting in the pile of unused gifts, and I thought it would be fun for John. I felt quite silly going to the local grocery store to have this huge fish filled, and of course it was windy as I walked to my car, but it was worth it. What a hit!
First of all they had to build it. That took Ryan and John a good hour of working together. When it was done, we found it was a bit heavy and would only float just off the floor. Kind of like a shark. But then they experimented and took off a few fins so that it would float. Lots of fun!
Natalie liked the scarf I knit for her. I learned how to do these ruffle scarves from a friend at bells, and I worked on my first one all during the concert week. I’m almost done with my third one.
The big hit of the day was the tablet, which we got for the kids. They can play games on it, and not fight so much over borrowing mom’s Kindle Fire. Yes, there have been some disputes already, but hopefully they won’t fight TOO much over it, and learn to take turns and share.
The highlight for me was talking to my other kids who are far away. We skyped with Larissa on Christmas eve, and then skyped with Cole on Christmas. Larissa is her usual fun, bubbly self, and it was so fun to talk to her. I’ve missed her! She is doing well. She’ll be coming to visit this summer, so that will be fun.
I didn’t realize how much I was looking forward to talking to Cole until the arranged time had come. He said he would call between 11 and 12 our time. At 11, we emailed him our skype password and kind of just waited. At noon he still hadn’t called. I realized I had no phone number for him, no skype Id for him, and I couldn’t contact him. He had to contact us. AT about 12:10, he sent a text and asked for our skype id. Horray! Then we tried the skype thing, and got disconnected after about a minute. WHAT? Not fair! But it’s just technology and we can deal with these things, so we restarted and dialed him up again. We got to talk to him for about an hour, and it was great! We asked about the work, what he was doing for Christmas, who he was teaching, his companion, etc. We told him everything we could think of. When I asked what mas the biggest challenge he faced as a missionary, he said it was drugs. Not for him personally, but for the people he is teaching. Many of them have drug problems, and it’s a big obstacle to feeling the spirit and wanting to change their lives. How thankful I am for the word of wisdom that teaches us not to use alcohol and drugs.
Later that afternoon we converged upon my parents’ house for an early dinner. Even though it was only my sister Amy and her family, us, my aunt and uncle and my parents (which is only 9 of the 28 grandchildren), it was still pretty loud. We ate, played Bingo and exchanged gifts. Such a lovely day.
Even though we didn’t have a lot of expensive gifts, our tree remained broken the whole season, and Cole wasn’t here, it was a nice Christmas. It was a peaceful Christmas. I hope we can keep that peace and joy of our Savior all year.
I hope you also had a Merry Christmas with your loved ones!
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