christmas recap 2009

Whew, what a week! A fun week, that is.

There's so much to tell and more importantly, remember about our second Christmas as a family of three. I decided I'd make a list of my top Christmas memories from 2009. Cue Bing Crosby.

1. The dress.
(We'll start with the most materialistic memory.) One of the absolutely best parts about having a girl is getting to dress her. She's the most realistic baby doll I've ever owned. After her baby showers, Dan remarked he never knew the world contained so many little pink dresses until we were cramming them into her closet.

I found this dress in September at a consignment sale and couldn't wait for Christmas to hurry up and get here so she could wear it already. As I ironed it on Christmas Eve I nearly had a conniption when I realized part of the hem had come undone. But then I remembered some double sided tape we had purchased a while back. So what if its purpose is to hang things on the wall? Desperate times call for desperate measures, even if it means hemming my daughter's Christmas dress with the 3M equivalent of duct tape. I bought her headband on Etsy and her fabulous shoes were a destined find at Target.

2. The standing ovation.
Reesie has gone to church nursery every Sunday since she was six weeks old. She loves her some church nursery. For a very specific reason I decided to try her out in "big church." I'd like to say that reason was so we could worship as a family and I could impart to her my wealth of biblical knowledge. The real reason was I wanted to show her off. Especially after pulling off a duct tape victory for non-sewing moms everywhere. I knew she probably wouldn't make it through the entire service. I packed some snacks and hoped for the best. After leading us in a medley of Christmas songs, the worship pastor beckoned for us to take our seats. As far as our daughter could tell, someone had finished singing a great set of tunes and deserved some applause. As the entire congregation settled in, Chica raised both arms over her head, smacked them together several time and shouted, "Yea! Yea!"

3. The 11:00 service.
For the first time ever, our youth hosted an 11:00 P.M. service for anyone who wanted to attend. They led the worship , memorized scripture and even handled the teaching. They did an incredible job and the service was unforgettable.


4. Christmas cards.
I love, love, love Christmas cards! I love checking the mail in general, but when December rolls around and there might be a Christmas card in the mailbox, get out of my way people. I strung the cards up over our big window. I didn't have time to hang each of them on the line, but I loved them all nonetheless. I'm trying to decide how long I can justify leaving them up.


5. Gourmet meals.
I decided we were going to have breakfast food for Christmas Eve dinner. But by the time the 5:30 service was over and we had set up for the 11:00 service, we were all starving. It was a Christmas Eve feast.




6. Cookie decorating.
Before bedtime, Reesie changed into some Christmas jammies and we decorated Christmas cookies together. I handled the icing and Reesie was in charge of sprinkles.


And she was the self appointed taste tester.


7. Christmas Morning.
Chica noticed right away when she came out of her room that something was different. She made a beeline for the table and chairs that my dad and stepmom sent for her. The rest of the morning she opened her presents.



Sometimes you just have to get your teeth into it. :)


Her Daddy assembled things all morning before he opened his own gifts.


For lunch we went to the home of some very dear friends. They were so sweet to "adopt" us this year since we were so far away from our own families. We were Christmas Crashers. This picture is Chica getting ready to blow out the candle after we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. I made the mistake of asking whose birthday it was. What kind of pastor marrying Christian am I?

After lunch, each of us took a Christmas nap. Then we spent the rest of the day hanging out. It was delightful.

You know what the best part of my week was? Spending time with two of my favorite people in the whole world.

Merry Christmas bloggers. Thanks for sharing in ours!