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We wound up getting our white Christmas after all! I realize that sounds almost silly, since we live in Alaska and all, but we hadn't had snow all year! Well, we'd get snow, but it would melt again. However, we've had some on the ground for a week or two now. And today, oh it was so beautiful! We were under a snow advisory and it just snowed all day long! So gorgeous. This morning my parents, sister and her hubby, and a dear friend came over for breakfast and gifts. It was just such a blessing to have everyone here. If only we'd have had my other 2 sisters, my nieces, and my FIL, it would have been perfect. After a short afternoon nap, we made ready for our church fellowship. The mid-week service was held at our house tonight. Because of all the snow, the turnout was small, but we had a great time. My oldest son even played for us while we sang! I was so proud. That's the first time he's ever played for congregational singing. He did 1 song tonight, someone else took over for the rest of the songs, but it was great. He's only been taking lessons for a few months. :) MIL and I had been busy bees making candy and cookies. We had peanut brittle, peanut butter balls, dipped pretzels, peppermint bark, pinwheel cookies, oatmeal butterscotch cookies, and chocolate peanut clusters. We also served a cheese ball my mom made, we sliced up some summer sausage, and we put out some crackers. Everyone snacked all evening. We are so blessed to be able to cover our entire table with goodies for our friends and family! With all that we had going on, we didn't quite have our traditional Christmas dinner. In fact, we had pizzas. But you know what? It was really nice. All the women pitched in for the huge breakfast, and then this afternoon I just popped the pizzas in the oven and we ate those on paper plates. No fuss, no muss. It left time for us to enjoy each other and our new gifts and still have time to rest before services tonight. I was quite touched to hear both of my boys say (at different times) that this has been the best Christmas ever. I know that we have all had FIL on our hearts and minds in the past weeks and we can feel the prayers that people have been putting forth on our behalf. MIL has done so well. I know she's having a hard time, but she's really hanging in there. As for this being the best Christmas ever, I worry that it could be taken as disrespectful to FIL's memory, but ya know what? I think I may agree with my crew. This Christmas has just been wonderful. We've all been relaxed. We've remained focused on what Christmas is all about. We managed to find exactly what we were wanting for each person on our list. I was able to give hand made gifts that turned out pretty good and seemed to make the recipient happy in each case. And did I mention that we've all been relaxed? So, tonight, as I end my wonderful Christmas Day, I hope each of you had as wonderful of a holiday as we did. Merry Christmas! |
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