The Christmas Blur

This Christmas as many others in the past was a bit of a blur! You always want to try and visit everyone and their dog during the few days you have.

I was off Christmas Eve...thank goodness! Work has been a bit of a nightmare for me...yeah, I know, big shock. My boss quit and I have been promoted...yeah, promoted by default I like to call it...something like frying pan into the fire. Then my back up has decided to leave the company. We turnover a person about every three weeks there and since the company only has 20-25 people (depending where you are in the three weeks) it makes it quite busy, at least on the HR side of things :)

Christmas Eve, Mike and I did our "gift analysis" and ran out to get our "panic gift". Graham was attending a basketball clinic put on by the Horton High coach. He and his buddy, Connor had a blast. Mike and I were in New Minas when Elysia called us from Josee's house to say she wasn't feeling well...so we left New Minas to get her, and as you can imagine, leaving New Minas on Christmas Eve is easier than it sounds...took us about 15 minutes to get out of the parking lot, so we headed to Wolfville rather than go through town. We managed to get Elysia, get home, scarf down lunch, get Graham at his camp, scarf down supper and make it up to Josee's for their annual Christmas Eve bash. Every Christmas Eve, they attend church and then have all their family and friends over for a little get together. In the past we usually were not able to attend as Mike was working Christmas Eve but since we came back to the valley, we've been able to make it.

Christmas Eve, Mom and her crazy little dog, Sofie spent the night. Mom slept in Elysia's bed and Elysia slept on the cot in the room with her. Sofie kept trying to sneak over to the cot with Elysia. We told Graham he was not allowed out of his room before 6 am...apparently he woke up at 5:20, went to the bathroom and then sat on his bed and stared at the clock. Christmas morning is the one and only time that he is allowed into Elysia's room to wake her up. Graham was in our room at 6 on the dot and ready to roll.

So Christmas morning, we came down and opened our gifts. The Wii from Grandma was the big hit as was the Guitar hero from us for Graham and the "Bench" sweater from us for Elysia. We had fun watching the kids and the dog open their gifts...took Sofie a few minutes to get into the gift giving but she did.

This is a picture of my living room after the Christmas Tree threw up!!

After the opening of the gifts, we headed up to Josee's to see them open their gifts. Here's a picture of Josee and I in our matching pj's from Mom, I am sure there was another set out in BC under Tracey's tree.After their gifts were open it was back to the house for some lunch and some R&R...Mike worked on our dinner we had planned for Boxing Day then he had a nap. Mike was upstairs on the bed, mom in our big chair and me on the couch. Elysia had her friend, Adam in for a while and Graham had his friend, Connor in and the four of them played with the Wii of course, lots of noise coming from that room. After our little nap we went to Josee's for some kid play time and supper of Christmas Eve party left overs. Elysia and Graham brought their controllers for the Wii and played on Sarah and Connor's, the four of them played tennis...definitely need to stay out of the way of that.

Boxing Day was a big turkey lunch at our house...I am just there for the cleaning, this is Mike's deal. We had a beautiful meal, lots of laughs (gotta love those Christmas cracker hats).

My friend, Janet had a terrible time with her turkey this year. Her mother bought a fresh turkey that didn't turn out so fresh. She asked Mike to make gravy for her (not that she can't but Mike's is soooo good) so he asked her for the neck and the other gross things that end up in that little bag inside the turkey. So when Janet opened up the turkey to get it, it was rotten inside...this happened at about 6 on Christmas Eve...thankfully one of our neighbors had an extra turkey and so Janet also ended up with her meal on Boxing Day (with Mike's gravy). They didn't want to keep the rotten turkey in the house, so I guess they put it out in their shed and some animal go into it and tore it apart...we figure there is a dead raccoon around somewhere.

Last night, our neighbor Jackie had some an open house...so Graham and I went over for a while, good company and good eats....and Jackie makes the best slushies ever!! I had three and I still think there was no alcohol in them...that's my theory anyway.

Went to watch Connor's team win their tournament today and then off to Elysia's soccer game. She scored a funny goal off one of the other defenders, they don't have to be pretty to count. Then Janet, Graham, Connor and I went to watch the Horton Basketball game...which was quite good, although we ended up leaving early because Graham had scarfed down two burgers before we left and then had a bottle of water and a bottle of juice, I think it was all sloshing around in there pretty good so he was feeling a little green. He's in bed now and feeling better...I didn't want him to yack all over the stands in the gym...

Anyway...a Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!!