Seeing the Trains
A pre-lunch cookie!
Magical!
Trying to get her to talk to "Hoho" at Festival of Lights
Its the most wonderful time of the year... and yet nothing changes here on the homestead it just gets more snugly warm with a fire burning and pine scented :o) Christmas the past two years has really made me reflect on Christmases past and how I would like family traditions to play out in the future. As certain ones of my siblings start their own family traditions and don't come to my moms on Christmas day (some come for dinner) I assure her that I always will. She says I wont always feel that way but we will see.
I will take a sort of Christmas Carol theme here.
Christmas Past- when we were little we traveled over the river and through the woods to grandmas house. About a 4 hour trip come rain, shine or snow. I LOVE traveling, especially for the holidays! It is magical. We found out once we were grown that one year my dad built a false bottom in the back of our conversion van in order to hide our Christmas gifts without us knowing. I think my dad loved to travel as well, it must be where I got it. Although he would get extremely tired of riding in the car with the five of us by hour 3.5 and we all had to shut up and no more talking until we got to our destination. We would sing songs, play car travel games like the "ABC game" and the "license plate game". One year, we were pretty old so it was probably the last trip we all made together, my mom tried to get us to write "the Glenn Family's 12 days of Christmas" we only made it to 7... ask anyone in the family and they will simply exclaim "SEVENNNNN!" hehe sorry that is probably funnier to us kids than you blogging friends.
Grandmas house was Christmas Magic! Probably the closest thing to actually being in the North Pole. There were presents galore around what in my memory was a 45 foot tree (turns out its not, go figure) Our own hand made stockings with our names on them hung on Christmas Eve by my Grandpa who would inevitably staple his finger with the gun almost yearly. Family gathering and exchanging gifts, Grandma forgetting where she put the gifts and having them handed to you for hours afterward with a "here I forgot this one" or even better, opening something only to have it taken out of your hands and thrust into someone else's with a "oops thats not yours" I loved that crazy old lady but why were we so surprised to find out she had early Alzheimers? :o)
After we were all starting to graduate and in College and getting married mom decided to start our own family traditions at home and not travel up until new years. I was particularly missing Granny one Christmas day at Moms when she and Grandpa pulled into the driveway! Surprise! I cried! :o)
Last year Grandpa let us girls pick out some of Grandmas Christmas decorations to have as our own and buddy how I cried when I was getting them out to decorate a few weeks ago!
Christmas Present
Our family tradition now is to get together at mom and dads with our siblings usually the Sunday before Christmas and spend the day exchanging gifts, playing games and eating too much (I do wish I could break that last one) Its fun to watch the kids and enjoy each other's company. Its crazy because there are so many of us and its just our immediate family!
We also get together one day and bake cookies which is always eventful with so many little ones all running around apron clad on powdered sugar highs.
Joe and I exchange gifts on Christmas eve but only because that's about as long as we can wait. The girls get a stocking from "Santa" Christmas morning and this year Annie is getting a gift from us for the first time! This year we went to festival of Lights at the zoo where Annie nearly lost her toes to frost bite and screamed the whole time just to exclaim tearfully between hiccups as we left "dis is so fun mama". We also attempted to drive around the neighborhood to see Christmas lights which she also cried through and it gave me a new attitude towards doing anything with a 2 year old. Keep the expectations low!
Today we went to Krohn Conservatory to see the nativity scene and the pointsetta display and then Downtown to Duke to see the train display where they handed out the most amazingly good cookies I have ever tasted! Annie loved it, but again keeping the expectations low we only stayed at both places about 1o min each. She asked if we could get Pizza for lunch so we decided to try out the new Mellow Mushroom in Wilder. It was very tasty although with our love of a Large Dominos pizza for $6.99 we just couldn't justify spending $12 on a small.
We spend a day with Joes family as well eating snacks all day along with a huge tray of chick-fil-a nuggets, you can't go wrong and there is something to be said for not having to spend time in the kitchen! I love that we have separate days to spend with each of our families and not having to rush around. Christmas Day our family and Kelly spend the day at Mom's in our jammies watching Christmas movies, making a gingerbread house and then we have dinner with whoever wants to come over that night, usually just Kara's family.
Christmas Future
Obviously I have no idea how it will go but I anticipate not much changing. I love the little traditions we are building and hope that they will become sweeter each year as the girls build their memories. Now that I am a mother I have a new found appreciation of the Christmas story and Annie is enjoying me reading the story to her as well as pointing out "Baby Jesus and MaryMama!" in every nativity we pass. She told me the other day "Joseph took Mary to Bethlehem" I am so proud of that little girl!
At 6 months she is getting up on her hands and knees and a few weeks later she has figured out how to roll from her back to her belly! She is brilliant :o)
It has been fun to watch Annie interact with Mia these past few weeks.
Annie with "Papaw Meal" playing with the wonderful blocks
We will force these two to be best friends. Sharing Grapes.
I couldn't resist editing this one.
Big Uncle Joe always has some sort of surprise for the kids. Last year it was cans of silly string. This year it was those firework pop thingys. Annie was very excited when her dad showed her she could stomp on 'em.
She was too scared to pull the string and make the streamers fly out
Christmas presents from "Papaw Meal"
"Joey, GG, Lan, Grampa & Momma"
Great Grandpa Neal, Grammy and all the kiddos (minus Kelly & plus an extra Emmy Jo)
Happy New Year!
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