Monday, December 27, 2021

Christmas, Part Deux

 360/365

They call it Boxing Day.  We call it Unboxing day. 

We often use this day to clean  up from the generosity of our loved ones. 

And today, for the most part, wasn't much different. We needed to put stuff away. Of course putting stuff away led to issues on where to put things, which inevitably leads to some sort of Organization project around here.  Today it was Jacob's room, putting dressers away and sorting socks. 


Yes, have some. 
It started with Coffee. As it should be. 
Eric got me this fabulous Ghostbusters themed mug for Christmas yesterday. 
I loved it and specifically requested to drink from it first today. 


Ahsoka killed Darth Vader. 
He had a squeaker, and she would have none of it. 


Darth Vader being taken out by Ahsoka seems perfect.


As I worked on Christmas Cards, the strong boyz in this house moved dressers. Jacob's baby dresser is now in the basement, and he has two new (to him) dressers in his room, and things are being moved around and cleaned up in that room. Eric spent 3 hours sorting socks and matching and stuffing drawers today.  I did Christmas cards and took a nap, supporting from afar. 
Then we went to my Mom's for Christmas. 
She and Lisa made an "Annie's Mexican casserole" which is layered corn tortillas and toppings.  I asked Lisa for a side salad, but she never does anything halfway, so we ended up with a build your own salad bar, which was delicious, and just what I needed. 


My Grandpa used to take photos of every meal. 
I remember it driving me nutsy. I remember being annoyed at having to wait to eat while Grandpa took pictures, now I look at these pictures and remember everyone smiling, happy to eat together, and it's not so annoying.  So I continue the habit. I flubbed saying Grace tonight, I wish I'd had more mindpower to say something more than "God is Great, God is Good..."  though it's true, I wish I'd lent more of my heart in Thankfulness to our family prayer time.  I didn't want to lead. I regret that now. 
I was really Thankful for this time.  Two weeks ago, my family was hit with Covid. Mom stayed safe, but Lisa, James, and Charlie all got it.  Luckily, they didn't get hit too hard.  Still it was scary to not be nearby, and I was extra Thankful that we could get together to celebrate our slightly belated Christmas today.  Chris enjoys sitting at the big table now... it's not the boring room to him anymore.  


We still have the little kids table though... though they really aren't that little anymore. 
We ate in shifts, and the boys actually did a good job eating. 


Last week, on Mom's birthday, I dropped sushi off on their doorstep.  I peeked in the window, like some kind of stalker, and saw them decorating this tree.  It made me so happy to see, that they were all feeling well enough to do so, they were on the tail end of their covid adventures, but we weren't quite ready to get together with them, let alone eat.  So we waited, and did our celebrating today. 
Technically, we saw Lisa and them yesterday, but today was our Christmas.  


All the Cousins together. 
I know the Grandparents love to get pics of the kids together. 
I do too. <3

This was my gift to my Mom, a sushi scarf.  If you roll the scarf up it looks like a sushi roll.  I had to make up the pattern, and it was neat when it was all wound up, but I forgot to get a picture of it. Doh. Meanwhile, this sushi scarf came with a gift card to Ocean World, one of Mommy's favorite sushi places.  She was excited.  It's not making up for the fact that her Birthday Party got bumped, but it was something good.  And I'm pretty happy with how the sushi scarf turned out. 



While I was watching Mom, the kids opened their gifts from Lisa, 3 sets of bluetooth headphones.  All three of them can hook up their tunes to their screens and play quietly... theoretically. 
They were pretty happy about that. 


I got my sister good. #Goals
I completely surprised her with a T-shirt of Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby in the Sisters outfits.  


It was a pretty awesome shirt. 
And the girls were also pretty happy with their Squishmallows and Sushi cards. 
It was a very sushi and White Christmas.  Lisa got a shirt and mug of Sisters. 


Eric got some nifty Hawaiian shirts that with Purple. He loves to wear Hawaiian shirts when he's on vacation, and we seem to be traveling with the Band a lot, and purple is our color now. 


Nana surprised them all with money. 
Visions of Nintendo things dance in their heads. 

Eric offered the boys 10 cents a stick to pick up in the yard the other day, and before he knew it, he owes Sam $100 and Chris and Jacob roughly $50 each.  However, he got all the yard work done in one day, so that was pretty good. We have lots of Holiday Break goals, and that knocked out a couple with having the boys help.  It's really neat now that they have enough strength to really be helpful. It couldn't come at a better time, I'm getting old, and a lot more useless, it's handy that they are helpful, I appreciate them so much.  


Meanwhile, I wore my new White Christmas Tshirt today too.  As soon as Lisa opened her present, I took off my flannel and showed her I had it. She laughed so hard.  It was Perfect. She loved the theme, and she enjoyed her presents.  I'm so glad.   She even let me take cheesy photos of us together in our matching shirts. We'll see if we ever plan to match again.  Who knows?


Next year, I think I'm going to need giant feather fans. ;) 


We're silly. 
Sisters. Sisters. 
There were never such devoted sisters. 




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