The gingerbread house. We used to actually use graham crackers and my mom would make homemade icing and we'd make them from scratch. We now use the kits (I'm not sure if it's because we can now afford them, or we're more lazy)
This pose. Every. Single. Christmas. For as long as I can remember, this is how my dad poses for his pictures, and I'm certain he was saying "Oh how pretty" as he opened it. He usually also has a bow on his head, but I'm pretty sure my mom stopped using the bows JUST so he couldn't put them on his head :)
This is me opening one of my gifts. Notice how my brother is "helping" me. He never can keep his hands to himself. He likes to open his, as well as everyone elses :)
My mom works really hard to have an elegant Christmas Eve dinner every year. We give her a hard time about it, but, we really like it! During this "elegant" dinner, there are two things that are certain to happen:1) Daniel is going to complain about people being able to see him. (The window in the dining room doesn't have blinds, so as cars drive by they can see in.)
2) My dad and Daniel are going to run their fingers around the rims of the crystal glasses to make humming noises.
This goes along with the elegant Christmas Eve dinner. These little salt dishes are the cutest things on earth. It does seem like kind of a waste to pour salt from a perfectly good shaker into these dishes and then use a spoon to get the salt out, but they are precious.
Family picture time. We set the tripod up, get in a pose, my mom goes and approves the pose (while looking through the camera), runs back and sits down, my dad goes and sets the timer and then runs to jump in the picture - every time.
Daniel and I standing in the hallway and wait for the "ok" to come in the den to see our Christmas presents.
Our presents will be wrapped in identical wrapping paper (Daniel's in one color, mine in another) and mom will put numbers on the back of each one, and she has a corresponding list so she can remember what is in each gift :)
Other memories that I do not have pictures readily available for:
- Every year, Daniel is going to say it's his year to go in first. He will then also say it's his year to open presents first.
- We will have breakfast casserole for breakfast - we don't have it any other time during the year, just on Christmas morning (probably because it has no less than 1000 calories per serving I'm sure!).
- Dad never just gives mom a gift. He has to create a scavenger hunt complete with clues and a gift at each stop.
Christmas Blessings~
Remembering JESUS is the reason for the season!
Thanks for the walk down memory lane. It reminded me why I work so hard to make our time together homey and comfy. I am thankful you appreciate my effort. I am also thankful that there were no pics of me in my jammies. We will continue to have family dinners in the dining room so I guess D will just have to continue sitting with his back to the window. P.S. I use the salt sellers because they are antiques and once belonged to your great grandmother. And yes they are very cute and salt is not very expensive. Mom
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