On beyond Christmas

Mom  texted me this morning. "All the Christmas stuff is down. It's nice to be back to normal." I laughed and texted back "when has anyone in our family ever been normal mom??" 

We spent Christmas Eve at mom and dad's. Sister 1 and 3 were there. Only 1 of the cousins was there. Our group of 11 felt very very small, but we had fun.  Supper was an appetizer supper as I posted before. Delicious and way too much. After dishes we relaxed together and remembered. . Then BIL got out the guitar and we sang for a couple hours. We usually only do that when camping so it was great.

As we were leaving, I asked DS2 if he heard anything about brunch. My mom usually has brunch Christmas day. He said 'Nope! she said see you at your sister's for supper'. darn, I thought. We love that tradition, but we do get to sleep in a bit then.

The house was quiet Christmas morning until I got up at 9AM. I puttered about and the stockings appeared, as though by magic :-) As soon as they did, the little kids (cats) were so excited. They were running from stocking to stocking, sticking their noses in. Finally I told the cats if they wanted to get their stockings, they had to go wake up the boys. The girl cat looked at me and went straight to DS2's room and jumped on him. It was too funny. DS1 was very happy with his Swamp People T shirt and an NHL Blackhawks Toaster - you know...like the Cylon Toaster Sheldon has on the Big Bang Theory?  DS2 was happy with the new knives he got for his camping as well as this DVD Generation Kill, which is a documentary on the Iraq war in 2003. He's a deep thinker, my boy, and asked specifically for this.

We enjoyed our time opening up gifts and stockings and playing with the cats. Then we get a call from mom asking why we weren't there yet for brunch. We laughed so hard...then quickly showered and headed over for a yummy brunch of pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs and fruit. Delicious. Mom and dad were supposed to stop buying gifts but apparently not. The boys got new fuzzy blankets, a hoody each and gloves. DS2 got a knife sharpener and DS1 got Roughrider socks.

We headed home for a bit to visit with DH. He got very sick with a cold Christmas Eve and spent most of Christmas in bed, as I did last year.  Then it was off to my Sister1 for a bountiful Christmas supper. My great niece was there so it was fun to see her enjoying Christmas, at two, complete with running naked down the hall to find her new bath toys Santa brought her.  The boys played on the Wii with their cousins for awhile then we had a few kaiser games. We headed home around midnight.

You would think Boxing Day would be a day to sleep in, but with Canada playing in the Junior Hockey Tourney in Russia, it started at 4 AM here. DS1 and I got up to watch, but I didn't make it long before I fell asleep. Thank goodness for replays.


After a boxing day supper and mom and dad's, the boys and a couple cousins persuaded me to head to the school so they could play badminton. I headed to my classroom and started to clean and purge and made a good start at it. It was good to see the cousins together.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday with only happiness and smiles and new memories.