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Monday
Dec282009

Christmas 2009

I can’t believe Christmas 2009 has come and gone already—it went way too fast! Tomorrow we start another work week, and I’m not quite ready to give up the holiday festivities.

One thing I need to do is blog about our Christmas happenings. That way I at least have a record of the things we did and I can treasure the memories.

I mentioned earlier that we’d decided to give our children (and grandchildren) the gift of money this year, which freed up a lot of time. However, we did not give Shanna money. As most of you know, she returned in October from serving a mission for our church, and she recently moved out into a nearby small rental house.

Her Christmas wish was to have Shalae and me decorate the house. She’s not into decorating nearly as much as we are, so she gave us a budget (she’s been saving money) and turned us loose. We supplemented her budget with Christmas money from last year and this year. To get the biggest bang for our buck, we spent most of our time in antique shops, searching for great deals and a look that we knew she would love.

On Christmas Eve morning, Shanna came to our house. We’d made a deal—you tend the kids, we’ll surprise you on Christmas morning. So she played with the kids, and Sterling, Shalae, Jon, and I headed over to her house. We had a great time—Jon hung, wired, and rewired; Sterling picked up and delivered and unloaded and hauled; Shalae and I dusted, cleaned, and decorated. We had a ball!

About 5:30 that night we took a break and headed over to Sean and Sara’s house for our traditional Christmas Eve festivities. (Megan and Sage were both with their other families; we know we have to share, but we definitely missed them!)

We enjoyed a delicious array of finger foods (the kids love it because utensils are not allowed!), a Christmas movie (this year it was Christmas Angel), hymns, the Christmas story (this year we read a book while the younger kids acted out the story with felt figures from a preschool nativity set), and the opening of one gift each (usually the gift is pajamas).

At about 10, the Douglass kids went to bed, and we took the Brown kids back to our house and put them to bed, then Jon, Shalae, and I headed back to Shanna’s—we weren’t done yet! We ended up not leaving her house until 5 on Christmas morning (we’d made her sleep over at our house)! We got home and had enough time to grab a way-too-short-nap before the kids got up around 7 to see what Santa had brought!

We had put up a mesh gate in the hall so they couldn’t get to the family room, where the gifts were, and they waited as patiently as little children could while we got ready to usher them in.

Finally it was time, and we all enjoyed opening our gifts.

Shanna, in the meantime, was also waiting as patiently as a big girl could—enjoying watching everyone but pretty anxious to enjoy a tour of her newly decorated home! We finally took pity on her, made toast to go, and headed over for the grand tour (where we met Sean and Sara and their kids), still in our jammies. 

She was pleased, which made all our hard work worth every minute!

Later that day we gathered again for traditional Christmas ham dinner, with the works! We ate until we could eat no more, and then managed to stuff a little more in! 

The rest of the day was peaceful and relaxing, with lots of thoughts of gratitude, love, and joy. I hope your day, however you spent it, and whomever you spent it with, was full of the same!

 

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Reader Comments (16)

Shelli,
I love how your family does Christmas! I too come from a large family. We ALL get together on Christmas Eve at one of our homes. (we rotate years) We usually do finger foods, (but this year my SIL strayed and had to have an Italian dinner) in addition to the finger foods.....so needless to say, most of us didn't eat much dinner. I digress.......but growing up, we too could open one gift on Christmas Eve and it was ALWAYS new pj's! I sooo miss that now that I am older! But some of the younger nieces and nephews do it.

Hate that it is back to the grind for you! I have this week off before going back to work. My goal is to clean my stamp room! But the problem is I can never just clean it up! I always want to create....which of course leads to more of a mess! UGH!
December 28, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterJoan Hajek
Are you going to let us see the house you created? I love your taste in colors and clothes so your ideas had to be fantastic. I am so glad you had a blessed Christmas with family and remember what this season is about. The birth of our Lord and the love of family is what makes every day special. Thank you for what you do for us and have a wonderful New Year. I am so lucky to be part of the Stampin' Up family.

Carey Rogers
aka Roscoe's mommy
December 28, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterCarey Rogers
Shelli, thank you so much for sharing your Christmas Memories with us! I look forward to reading your blog and hearing your stories about your family. :)

I come from a very small family and only have one daughter (God's small miracale to us!) and have no grandchildren......yet. I, too, did the PJ gift tradition on Christmas Eve for my daughter when she was growing up, because that is what we did when I was growing up and I miss that now. My daughter is a nurse and had to work on Christmas Eve this year, so it was very quiet around our house.

It was back to the grind for me today, but I was off of work last week and I got to do alot of stamping! There is nothing like getting to close your self up in your stamp room and be creative!!!
December 28, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterTracey
so so jealous, I would love your help decorating my new home, just down the road from SU. Perhaps you could swing by after work one night. =)
December 28, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterSharie OwYoung
Shelli what an awesome gift from you....to decorate Shanna's apt....I would so love that. To come in to a clean newly decorated apt....wow. Are the two pictures of the bedroom and livingroom a taste of what you did? Love it!!!!!

I keep asking this but never get an answer....Does SU need an Administrative Assistant? I would love to work for you! LOL
December 28, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterTerry Molineux
Sounds like a wonderful celebration! Thank you for letting us in on your festivities. I'm sorry you have to head back so soon. My high-light this year is that I am enjoying this entire week at home with the family. We are so happy to have days in our jammies to just relax, play and tackle a few projects.
Happy New Year!
December 28, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterSHH
I really enjoy sharing in your family events. The pictures are marvelous (I would love to borrow your photographer for a photo shoot of my family...)
December 30, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterSue Decker
How lovely to give the gift of decorating! I did this for my sister many years ago and she has never forgotten it - she was a student in a pokey room at the time and I made it a lot more homely for her.

This year my sister came for Christmas with her family including my new 4 month old niece - which was even more of a present for me!

It sounds as though you had a perfect Christmas too. Good wishes for you and all your family for the new year and I hope to meet you this year at convention in London. Yay!
December 30, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterelizabeth
Thanks for sharing how you spent Christmas Shelli! And what this time of year means to you - the true meaning of Christmas! God's richest blessings!
December 30, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterLisa Martin
After we get home from Christmas Mass, we all get back into our jammies for gifts and the rest of the day! Merry Christmas!
December 31, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterChristina
Hi Shellie Happy New Year-

I have a question WHY are our exclusive sizzlets sold for less than in our catalog on the sizzix site? http://tinyurl.com/ybsqywn

a customer brought this to my attention tonight in an email and I am at a loss as to how to reply. I sent a note to demo support but wasnt sure if "you" would be made aware of this or if I would get back more than their normal canned reply- thanks I am confused and very upset.
love ya
Gwen
December 31, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterGwen Mangelson
Shelli,
Happy New Year! I just love your header of your blog! So perfect, how was it done?
Thanks!
Gay
January 1, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterGay Ferland
I love reading about your family holidays and this one was no different. What a great gift for Shanna and I know she appreciated it so much!
January 1, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterSharon Bridwell
Shelli I always love hearing about your Christmas with family. I so love the picture of the kids on the staircase! So Darling. I spent my week before Christmas and Christmas day and the week after in the hospital battling a bad case of bacterial pneumonia. As horrible as it sounds I knew I needed to heal and would not be spending a normal Christmas with family. They all piled in my room for a visit 4 granchildren 2 daughters one expecting our 5th granchild and our two sons and a son in law and hubby all came into to visit me. They practically wore me out in a few minutes of visiting. It took much longer to get better and although I am out patient now I still need to return to the hospital daily for treatment untill this Sunday. I feel lucky to be alive and able to celebrate the new year and hopefully a healthy year. I missed leadership as I am in no condition for that but hope to see you again at convention in July. Thanks for being such an inspiration to me.

Debi Pippin
Inverness FL
January 1, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterDebi Pippin
The pic of your granddaughter hugging her new doll is so precious. Wonderful.
January 7, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterPat
Thank you so much for all the hard work in the Phoenix, AZ Regional 2010. It was one of the best SU presentations filled with useful tips, talented presenters and ample stamping time. This was my second one I have attended and it was so well organized. Needless to say, Shelli ... you looked fabulous!

Thank you and your staff and all the presenters for a wonderful and fun-filled experience.

Happy Stamping,
Theresa Leonard
Phoenix, AZ
January 9, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterTheresa Leonard

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