Christmas 2018

EDITOR'S NOTE:  I'm not sure why the quality of photos in this entry are so bad.  Sorry about that, but it's all I've got.

Quinton's hospital stay was a blessing in one way - it forced me to slow down and enjoy what really matters during the Christmas season.  I didn't get all of my neighborhood gifts sent out, my little do-dad-shopping done, we had to pick and choose which concert we could go to or which parent would attend while the other one stayed home with sick kids, and I flat out missed a couple of things I usually do at Christmas time.  And do you know what? It was just fine.  Nothing bad happened.  Christmas was still wonderful!

 We had a lovely Christmas Eve Party at Kristin and Brian's house.

As you can tell, we were all looking and acting our finest.

 When we got home that evening, the kids opened their first present...

 New pajamas from Grandma and Grandpa Gee!!!

Then, we read Luke 2 and watched the church video depicting it.  Afterwords, we scooted the children off to bed.

 The next morning, we lined everyone up.  Actually, a this point, David and I don't do anything.  The older kids are the ones who keep all the traditions going for their younger siblings.  It was fun for me to hear them explain all the steps of what we do on Christmas morning and to watch them help Quinton get ready for our big Christmas Morning Reveal! Anyway, back to the story.  We lined everyone up and brought them into the front room to see if Santa came.

 This is what they saw when they came in...

 And here are some pictures of their reactions.We had a nice morning.  We looked at each others Santa Claus loot, then we opened the presents under the tree.  Then, we just spent the rest of the day enjoying our new presents.  I went to Grandma Church's place to visit her for a while and my parents came by to exchange gifts, but otherwise, we just enjoyed the day with our own little family.

One tradition that we carried on from David's youth is the bowls of nuts and candy all over the house.  I have to say, I really love this tradition!  I also love the cheese-on-bread and tomato juice breakfast that came from the Gee side of the family.  Our kids love it too.  Cheese-on-bread is an important part of Christmas in our house!  The tomato juice may have evolved into V-8, and the kids usually drink fruit juice, but the cheese-on-bread has withstood the test of time - it's been in the Gee family for generations!

 We got a couple of movies for Christmas, so we watched them while the boys worked on their gigantic Lego sets that they received.

Nicki is chopping up the Christmas slush for dinner.  That's a tradition that came from the Smith side of the family.  It just wouldn't be Christmas without slush!

Those Lego sets were so amazing!  The boys literally worked on them for hours and hours!  I've never seen them so focused on anything before!  And they were happy and helpful and excited with each other too!  I tell you, it was a Christmas miracle!

The table was so covered in Lego's that we decided it would be easier to leave it alone and set up a plastic table to eat on.