Christmas, Sort Of

We did mostly cancel Christmas. We're doing dinner at my MIL's on New Year's Eve, including our present exchange. My parents didn't come spend the night, so we also chose not to do presents this morning because it's more fun to do it all together. My mom is still sick, but on the mend. She had a nasty flu. She says now it more just feels like a cold.

I have more time to procure presents. Whew. Davan is a little disappointed off and on, but mostly doing well with it. She said, when I first told her we were postponing, "Well, that way Christmas will last longer. We can leave the decorations up longer. I think that most of the fun of stuff is anticipating it anyway."

Still, she sometimes has pangs of wishing we were doing real Christmas today. Anthony keeps saying, "The way the weather turned out, we could have done it." It's pretty drippy around here today. Our road is mostly slushy now.

I, though, am actually quite glad that we postponed. And I didn't even push for it. I'm glad for more time. I, like Davan, am enjoying the advent days (we backed up on the advent calendar). And we're having a kick-ass sort of Christmas.

We were still able to go to coffee with friends of ours yesterday and we all walked together in the snow. We spent a lot of time sipping coffee and chit-chatting while our girls played cards together. It's a Christmas Eve tradition that we all look forward to.

When we walked home, our older across the street neighbor was shoveling a walkway for his kids who were coming for Christmas Eve. The plow that came through our street created a good ridge of snow in front of his driveway. He wasn't trying to dig out, just to make a walkway for people. We helped him, then cleaned up our driveway, shoveling out to the packed snow in the street in case we needed to go anywhere. Davan, meanwhile, worked on her snow fort.

This picture is from the night before, but it still gives you an idea of it. She dug it out so she can totally lay down inside and sit up in there, too. It's pretty cool.



We came in for a light lunch - it was, to our surprise, already 3:00! Then we watched The Ultimate Gift. We liked the message, but found it kind of preachy. We also thought that the kit, while a good idea, was a little silly for a family that already did stuff together. A big deal was made of the kit and how it could help you build a better family with the gifts that were introduced in the movie. Check out the website for more information on that, if you're interested.

After the movie, we walked over to Safeway to return it to the box there. It was a lovely evening walk in the snow with Christmas lights all along the way. We opted to grab the sleds and do a little after dark sledding before coming in for a late dinner - a feast meal for us, topped off with brownies. Yum. Then it was bed time for Davan. It was a really great Christmas Eve.

We snuggled and slept in this morning, all three of us, as Davan joined us for snuggling in the morning. Then we made monkey bread together and ate that along with hashbrowns and garden sausages for breakfast.

We did a round of family rotational fun that included more sledding (although that wasn't so great because of it being mostly slush), building a snowman, making an ornament and playing games before starting some gingerbread dough for cut out cookies.



The dough is in the fridge, waiting. Lentil soup is burbling on the stove top and dough is rising for flat bread to go with it. The flat bread is a treat because we try to avoid using too much flour, for one, and for two, there is much more olive oil in it than we usually use. Lentil soup just goes nicely with the flat bread.

Of course, after snacking on baby carrots, sugar snap peas, left over brownies and caramel popcorn given to us by friends, I don't know how hungry everyone is. Ah well, the lentil soup will still be good tomorrow.

We've had a nice day of being together, playing in the snow and eating special foods. I totally feel like I'm getting two Christmases this year.