Finally - Christmas with our kids and grands!!

Our daughter, son-in-law and two youngest grands arrived on December 26 in time for a Chicky (Chick-fil-A) lunch. I had PT that morning and stopped and picked it up on the way home and they were there when I arrived.

Before they arrived, I had wrapped the two cute gifts below. My sister sent me some money to buy gift for our three granddaughters. I put a little money with her money and bought some extras -- like the bags. Oldest granddaughter loves pink. Middle granddaughter's favorite color is purple sparkly. I ordered purple and it was delayed so I bought a cheaper version at a local store and wrapped it. Luckily, the purple bag arrived while we were having Christmas!!

Look at this little cutie. She is 9 months old and she is so tall already. Her mommy is 5' 11" (ish) so she may end up being tall like her mommy.

She can roll over but hasn't quite figured out how to crawl but can maneuver herself across the rug in some form or fashion. She was born prematurely back in March so we aren't worried, nor is her pediatrician, about these milestones.

Laura had asked us to order the Pottery Barn chairs for her two girls.

She was excited!

We bought a sewing machine for our oldest granddaughter. There is a store in town that I frequented all of the time when our kids were babies and I was smocking and sewing. The name of the shop is The Smocking Bird and they sell Janome machines. I bought her the basic model. I didn't want to waste the money on a kid's sewing machine. 

Our son had to try out the chair . . .

I also gave the two oldest girls a Snoopy mug. Our daughter was sad because I didn't have one for her. Isn't this the cutest picture - her ruffle bottom jeans, sitting in her purple chair, pretending to drink from her Snoopy mug.

She had to try out her chair, too!!

Our daughter and her family are living temporarily with her in-laws so the chairs ended up staying at our house until they move into their own house.

I bought some cute clay kits from a girl at church and granddaughter #2s imagination was at work. Success!

Couch/blanket forts were made. Barbies were played. Crafts were made.

Sitting up was practiced and new toys were examined.

Floor sitting and floor laying was common.

High chair sitting and eating happened.

There was even some TV watching -- not much, but a little.

After the kids opened their presents and we ate dinner (roast beef, baked potatoes, copper pennies, and baby limas, and rolls), our son and daughter-in-law and "adopted son" went home but they left our oldest graneddaughter with us. We had all three granddaughters in our house for 24 hours. It was chaotic and lovely. I actually started coming down with a cold during the night and I fell asleep in my recliner at some point. I'm glad there were other adults around!! Our daughter and I were able to run to TJ Maxx and Homegoods just to see what was in the store! I bought some Turkish figs for Mark!

After they left, we immediately started taking down Christmas decorations. I have weeded out and made a give-away box and wiped down the outside of the tubs and I have labeled all of them. I actually had not packed away my Thanksgiving decorations so I did that, too.

Here we are on the cusp of a New Year - 2025. Wow. 2024 was a crazy year.

 

More December Shenanigans

On Sunday, the 22nds, we had our Contact Christmas. Contact is our more contemporary service. The Contact band plays and sings and some of our pastors tell a story in between. David, in the red vest below, is our executive pastor BUT he actually majored in art in college. One of his talents is to paint upside down and then flip it.

He painted Mary and baby Jesus. After the service, they auctioned off the two paintings (from two services) and the money went toward our manger offering (goes to outside ministries).

It was a great service and Glenn and his family, including granddaughter #1's other grandmothers, came to worship with us.

Mark and I attended Christmas Eve Eve service which is the same as Christmas Eve. We have so many people who want to attend that we have multiple services with the same music, etc. I worked on Christmas Eve so Mark came in time for worship and brought out neighbors, Lu and Dave with him.

Lu is a teacher and she teaches at a school where Matthew and Emma attended when they were babies/preschool age.

Mark and I are crazy about Matthew and Emma  and they are in our Tuesday night group! Lu wanted a quick snapshot with them.

Below is Brian, our senior pastor and my boss, as he talks/preaches at one of the bajillion services.

This is a shot from someone in the choir loft looking out at the congregation. We had a lot of folks over the course of 6:00 p.m. on the 23rd (the one Mark and I attended) plus 11:00 am on Christmas Eve morning - family service where kids can dress up as Mary and Joseph, etc.; plus 1:00, 3:00, 5:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve PLUS 11:00 pm on Christmas Eve. Lots of services and lots of people.

On Christmas morning, it was just the two of us. We opened the few presents we bought for each other.

Look at the bow Mark made with pipe cleaners :-).

We then headed over to our friend's house. They, too, were alone so the four of us had breakfast together at 8:30.

After a couple of hours at their house, we headed to Mark's twin brother's house to be with some of our family.

We left there and headed to the Lakeshore Rehab hospital bearing plates of food for Bill and Rebecca. I did not take any photos at that stop.

After that, we were wiped out so we took a nap and then got ready to go again. This was the year we needed to stay busy.

We headed to our son's home. He lives about 40 minutes away. As we started up the street to his house, we could see emergency lights flashing. A child was driving a golf cart and flipped it RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR SON'S HOUSE. A 3 year old child ended up UNDER the golf cart. Our son's next door neighbors ran out and pulled the golf cart off the child and carried her inside The lady who lives next door is a Nurse Anesthetist so she worked on stabilizing the child. A bone was sticking out of the child's leg -- but it could have been so much worse. Oh my goodness - I hugged our granddaughter so tightly.

Our sweet daughter-in-law made a gorgeous charcuterie board for us to graze on and our granddaughter showed us all of the things she received for Christmas.

They have chickens and all of the chickens want to huddle up on this one tiny section. They have to literally carry the chickens to their coop.

We left their home and drove back toward town and headed to Nathan's family Christmas party. This Christmas Day Night family party has been going on for a LONG time. Mark has 11 first cousins and they are all invited plus their families. Nathan has moved into a new home so we were able to check it out and it is lovely!

Nathan had the whole house decorated beautifully!

The oldest cousin will be celebrating her 50th wedding anniversary at the end of the month, so her daughter brought an anniversary cake. See cake below!!

More to come . . .

Staff Christmas Day

You might remember that I work on a church staff . . .and have worked there for 20 years. For the last 8 or 9 years, we've made a staff Christmas video. It is always released at our Contact Christmas service and the whole point of us making fools of ourselves is to encourage people to give to the manger offering of which every dollar is given away outside the doors of our church to our mission partners and to The Hub, our own outreach mission hub. This offering is above and beyond what people normally give/tithe to the church. We usually collect over $100,000. I haven't heard the total yet but going into our Christmas Eve services, we already had over $80,000.

Our staff Christmas lunch/video day involves costumes and craziness. The guy in the crazy red and green suit below is our senior pastor, Brian, who is also my boss and he is the mastermind behind the video content.

We filmed the "rock concert" portion of the video in our student (6-12th grade) ministry space - hence, the fog and moody lighting!!

The photo below is our three retired pastors who work part-time and visit those in the hospital, etc. Two of these guys are 75 years old and the star is 85 years old. They are such good sports every single year. Their wigs were hysterical.

At noon, we stopped recording long enough to play reindeer games and eat lunch. The games were cute!!

Here is pastor Bobby -- all 85 years of him. He was the star. I actually had the two photos below printed and put them in frames and wrapped them and gave them to his wife for Christmas. She loved them. Her name is Twink and that is not a nickname and the name fits her so well. She is adorable. Bobby and Twink had one son, Robert, and he had spina bifida. Bobby has shared some of their journey with us during his preaching moments in our staff chapel. We were never blessed to meet Robert, but it sounds like he was a wonderful person and it sounds like Twink took wonderful care of him.

I hope you will take a moment to watch the video and see us make fools of ourselves. Here is the finished product - check it out here.

 

Christmas Party for the Young Professionals

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you might remember that Mark and I host a group on Tuesday nights. The group is for those in their 20's or early 30's, out of college (higher ed is fine), and not married.We've been hosting this group, which is ever changing, for almost15 years. When I say it is ever changing . . . think about this time in life. A lot of them are in their first job after college and when the next best opportunity comes along, they grab on . . .or . . .they meet someone and fall in love and get married.

When we bought the house we are in, one of the non-negotiables was a full sized dining room. We can cram 14 young adults around the table. Once every inch of space is used in the dining room, the rest sit or stand around the island in the kitchen to eat.

This night was special -- it was our Christmas Party . . .Dirty Santa!! Everyone brought a gift that cost between $10-$20 and we drew numbers and played away.

We were missing at least two regulars who had work/life conflicts. They are awesome!!