Christmas Day

 

I love seeing the tree lit with lights, the fire burning in our electric, switch-operated fireplace, and a mound of surprises in colorful paper waiting the enthusiasm of our kids. Buck groggily made himself a pot of coffee and the kids posed for goofy pictures while it brewed. They opened stockings and gifts from each other (I think the givers enjoy this as much as the getters—our kids are so cool). Breakfast normally involves blina and a dirty kitchen, but in our de-stress efforts, we nibbled on a coffee cake Buck brought home from work and drank juice. He put a rack of pork in the oven for our lunch, and we returned to gift opening.

The kids and I managed to surprise him, the man who sees through wrapping paper, with a couple of his gifts. The hockey stick was not one of them : ) However, given the tension headaches he’s been having for months, I thought a good neck massager would be just the thing. And as I was shopping for that, I noticed a leg massager (his favorite!) for a great price (Black Friday, reserved on-line, picked up with a coupon in-store a few days later, booyah!). Technically, I saved in coupons what I was supposed to spend on his gift (in other words, I blew the budget), but I felt bad that I didn’t encourage him to buy the truck that was parked at the turn onto our street for weeks and weeks and weeks, that he was positively drooling over. He always busts the budget for me, so I thought he deserved a treat. Almost literally, he sat in the same spot with those two massage things going all day! All weekend? I think I did a good job : )

He gave me a paper shredder (I’m safety conscious), but not til a few days after Christmas because he didn’t want to wrap any more. He also beefed up my collection of kitchen utensils, added to my supply of “favorite books that I now own,” and added a few other fun surprises to my gifty morning.

 

The kids fully enjoyed their blessings, the only “complaint” I heard, and it was really more just a sad realization, came from Graysen. “I did not get any Legos.” Sure enough, everyone else had Lego kits or stocking stuffers or sibling gifts, but G$ got zilch! (Maga made up for that a couple days later : )

 

Our lunch was weird, ha, but pretty good. I tried a crockpot sweet potato recipe that had pineapple in it (blech), we had the pork which was super tasty, Brussel sprouts (overcooked), corn bread, I think I planned to make potatoes but forgot, and was it the lemon-fluff salad as a side? For supper we had vegetable noodle soup from the broth leftover from Caelan’s birthday meal. Other than that, we really just spent the day calling family, building Legos, checking out our new clothes and gifts, and enjoying the time with each other.