December 30, 2010

Festive and Fun

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas.  
Merry and bright.
Filled with wonder. 
My boys on Christmas Eve celebrating my FIL's birthday
Our kids are still at that magical age.  Their excitement is contagious.  Their honest gratitude is beautiful.  Their wonder is a delight.  And they don't need a nap in the middle of Christmas to function.  Perfecto!

In my happy place: capturing our memories (with an ancient video camera that still uses tapes)  :)

This was a fun gift to give my girls:  Turbie Twists, hair accessories, and a fancy hairdryer.
No more borrowing my hairdryer, yay!

We usually do Christmas Eve with my in-laws, Christmas morning with just us, then my parents come over for brunch.  We head over to their house for the rest of the day and usually have an early dinner.  This year my dad (who NEVER cooks) made Christmas dinner.  We were all very impressed with his chili.  He even used a Rachel Ray recipe!

The best part of the day was a video phone conversation with my brother who is currently deployed.  It was such a sweet time for my kids (and the grown ups) to get to "see" him.  Christmas just isn't the same when a loved one is so far away.

This is what Reeses Cups for breakfast looks like:


For the first time since the 1940's our area had ...
a white Christmas!

6 comments:

Tracey said...

The 'Reeses for breakfast' photo made me laugh! There's a whole lot of detox starting here on Monday...it promises not to be pretty.

Why didn't they have those super cool hairdryers when we were teens?

Looks like you had a wonderful Christmas..thanks for sharing!

Happy New Year!

Little Oak Table said...

Do you have two brothers or is this the one that just got married?

What a great Christmas you had!

So, what was it like to have a White Christmas?!!!

Carpool Queen said...

Catching up on blogs today (sooo sooo behind) - So glad your Christmas was merry -

Thanks for including us in your festivities last week. It was so much fun -

Richella Parham said...

So glad you had a good Christmas, Gretchen! How blessed you are to live close to both your families.

The snow was lots of fun, wasn't it? Durham was a winter wonderland on 12/26. My hubby and oldest son ventured over to Duke and took some photos of the campus in the snow. :)

I'm glad to have "met" you in 2010! Perhaps 2011 will bring a chance to get together face-to-face!

Suz said...

I want to be a pre-teen again and have one of those blow dryers. They are so cute!
I am speechless about your dad cooking! Sounds like the chili was yummy!

Happy New Year.

Amy said...

Glad you had a great Christmas!

BTW, our camera uses tapes, too.