My Three B's: Christmas 2008

We traditionally have our big family dinner on Christmas Eve at my parent's house and this year was no exception. We had my entire immediate family present and my Grandma Rich too. We had a fabulous dinner of pot roast with potatoes and carrots, mashed potatoes, peas, orange glazed sweet potatoes, Justin made dinner rolls, my Mom made orange rolls, and I made a new salad with romaine lettuce, baby spinach, pears, fennel bulb and dried cranberries. We had a couple of different desserts including lemon bars and my favorite Sticky Toffee pudding.

Five of the seven grandkids posed in front

of Grandma's Christmas tree.

We had three tables set for dinner. The three boy

cousins sat together. We always have Christmas

crackers and wear the colored tissue paper crowns

while we eat dinner.

After dinner we tried something new (for us) and had the kids dress up and act out the Nativity. Brynne was a shepherd, Blythe was Mary, Barrett was supposed to be a wise man, but refused to wear a costume. Nathan was Joseph, Hannah was an angel, and James was the cutest sheep you've ever seen. Jessica stripped 13 month old Tyler down to his diaper to be baby Jesus, but he was even less cooperative than Barrett. My Dad told a very condensed version of the Christmas story and then we sang Christmas carols while my Dad played the piano. The kids really got into Jingle Bells. Then since we weren't going to be together the next day we exchanged gifts. Barrett almost fell asleep while we were singing, but revived enough to open his presents. He conked out for good shortly afterwards and missed dessert.

Brynne sitting on her Great-Grandma Rich's lap.

Walt at the piano.

Waiting to open presents.

Our Christmas tree.

The kids stockings and presents from Santa.

Christmas Day the kids woke up at the respectable hour of 7:00 a.m. Unfortunately, Justin had woken up earlier than that to throw up. He was able to join us to watch the kids open their stockings and then we moved right on to all the presents under the tree. I remember as a child when we would spend Christmas with my grandparents in Pennsylvania that we could open our stockings as soon as we got up, but we had to wait to open the presents until everyone had woken up, eaten breakfast and gotten dressed. I remember waiting anxiously for my aunt and uncle and two small cousins to finally appear. There was no tortuous waiting for my kids this year. As soon as all the presents where opened Justin went back to bed where he stayed most of the day. We had planned to go to Salt Lake to see Justin's extended family. Both the Petty's and the Barrett's were having brunch at 11:00 a.m. I'm still not sure how we were going to pull that off. For the first time ever we just stayed home all day. At first the kids were thrilled to be able to play with their new toys right away. Especially Barrett who had gotten some new trains for his Brio set. But by 4:00 p.m. the novelty had worn off and Brynne had declared it, "The worst Christmas EVER!" because she was so bored. By then the snowstorm that we had been expecting all day finally materialized and I decided it wasn't worth the effort to go up to my parent's house for dinner. I would have had to snowblow the driveway twice. Luckily, we had brought some of the leftover pot roast home with us since my Mom didn't have room in her refrigerator so we had plenty to eat. I never did get another piece of Sticky Toffee pudding though. Justin's Dad ordered a Thomas the Tank Engine playhouse for Barrett. He was so thrilled that he had to sleep in it that night. My parents had given him a Cars sleeping bag, pillow and flashlight set, so he put those inside his Thomas and actually slept in there for about three hours before waking up and crawling into bed with me and Justin.