A Quiet Christmas Day

It's Christmas morning. The kids and I slept in the family room together last night. Rob stayed up late writing while we all slept and finally went to bed. :) Matthew, who is usually the last kid up and is definitely our "night owl," was the first one to sleep last night and the first one up today. :) He was sitting up on his pallet waiting for us to all wake up, and when I woke up, he said, "Let's open our presents!!!" :) Still like a little boy even if he's the biggest person in the house. :)

It's been a nice, quiet Christmas morning so far. The kids opened their gifts. While the kids made their breakfast, took turns playing their video games, and Rob put his toolbox together, I have written & addressed all my thank you cards. Boy, my hand is hurting now where I broke or hurt the pinky. It has been bothering me more and down into my hand, but I just keep praying for it and letting God take care of it. I'm strongly debating just having my "pj" day and staying in them today. Everyone else has stayed in theirs too so far, and it's been years since we had a family pj day. :)

Last night was a lot of fun!!! We decided to have our Christmas dinner last night like we used to do with my family in Illinois. I didn't want to deal with a turkey, so we had a roast instead. It was a nice, much simpler meal. We used the "Grandma" china and, for the first time ever, I let the kids bring out the crystal from Vietnam that was my daddy & momma's. We watched The Nativity Story; that is a great movie! I cried throughout the movie. We all wrote a letter to God, went out into the yard and those who wanted to, shared their letters with the rest of us, then we all burned our letters as an "offering" to God. Then we came back inside and had the sillies- the kids had Santa on radar (noradsanta.org) and kept watching for him off and on during the evening; it was funny! I called my parents, and we all talked to them. My dad has started a "family joke" about the Waffle House- a different story I should write sometime- so we kidded around about that too. Then we all just crashed on our pallets/couch/chair and went to sleep. Barbara kept telling us to "hush up and go to sleep- Santa is coming." I hung up the boys' stockings before we went to sleep, but I couldn't put up Barbara's because it had a stuffed reindeer peeking out at her. So when she woke up this morning, I told her that Santa had, in fact, come. She saw her reindeer and did her usual "girl, gushiness" stuff- "Oooh, he's so-o-o-o cute!!!!!!!!!!" :)

I sure do love my family!!! Thanks God for this wonderful family you gave me, and for more precious time with them. I am so thankful for all You have blessed me with.

Now, I think I will do some reading and maybe I'll write some too. We're going to watch Christmas movies and I think I'll see if my kids want to play a game with me too.

Merry Christmas to all who are crazy enough to read my blog! :)

Joyfully yours,
Rebekah :)