Another Christmas!!

What another wonderful second Christmas time. Scot, Janet, and Logan; Wade Marlene, Tim, and Ryan, and Marlene's nephew Brandon came this evening for supper and a few presents.

The meal was great. We had knoephla soup by myself, sub sandwiches, and a monster load of veggies from Marlene and of coarse goodies. Everyone enjoyed the soup and said it was delicious. Wade said it was not as creamy as Grandma's but I don't think any of us can live up to Grandma's cooking or at least the memory we have a Grandma's cooking. Lefse was a little tough according to Marlene and Scot, but I am still proud of my attempt. Ryan made some sugar cookies too and they were scrumptious.

Once dishes were done (tradition from my family is all dishes before presents), we opened presents. In a frenzy of paper, many nice presents were given, and the kids had a great time with the toys. Logan was so cute. He opened a package of cars from us and then headed to the kitchen to play and wouldn't come back to open other presents. At one point Wade and Andrew were wrestling, Logan bopped Andrew in the head with a sword. Andrew rubbed his head and Logan said OW for Andrew. Andrew was excited for Uncle Scot to put together a model plane he had given him. He also played a lot with trucks from Wade and Marlene. And as Andrew likes to show off he had to show everyone his costumes. Grace had a lot of fun too. She hopped from lap to lap and snuggled and wanted everyone to read to her. I think the teenagers and the adults had a good time too.

Tony created photo collages for the kids- which just look awesome. We will have to work on getting pictures in them. Thanks! And guess what Tony- I got more cookie cutters- Rudolph the Red nose Reindeer. Yeah!!

There is a story behind the replica angel Scot is holding in one of the pictures. Mom always had this raggedy little angel for the top of the tree. We don't know when or where she got the angel, but Tony, Wade, Scot and I always have remembered it being on the tree. It was the tree topper of our four foot tree until we starting using Tony's large 6 foot tree. At that point, the angel was as close to the top as she could be. Even though this handmade angel was pretty beat up we still used her. A few years ago I made Tony and Wade a replica angel as close to the original as possible, and this year I finished one for Scot and one for our family. Scot recognized the angel, but knew she was not the same one. He was impressed that I got her as close to the original. I placed ours as close to the top of our tree as possible and gave a little momentous smile as I put her on top.

I guess it is the little things that make Christmas time so special to me. We don't get together much, but tonight felt just like it would have years ago with Mom and Dad. I like to think that they were all watching from their heavenly homes with our Savior and getting in on the fun too. Merry Christmas.