Christmas Eve for my family, 2006

Category: Puttering Around The House | Posted: Mon Dec 25, 2006 5:54 am

We slept in this morning, the weather was very overcast and pretty chilly. Since the shopping and wrapping was done, the baking was complete and all I needed to make was the fudge that Lisa and Amanda like, we were able to just take it easy. One of the traditions we started a very few years ago, this day is for resting up from the preparations and getting ourselves ready for the fun and mayhem of Christmas morning with the grandsons.

The forecast had been for possible sprinkles off and on during the day but about 11 a.m. a slow and steady rain began. It is now almost midnight and the rain is still falling at the same slow, steady pace. Really a nice cold soaker. In fact the rain fall has been so slow that in the last 12 hours there is only 1/2" of rain in the really large rain gauge out back.

We left a little after 1 this afternoon for lunch at Luby's Cafeteria. Surprisingly it wasn't very crowded in the dining room but the take-out section was pretty busy, lots of women decided that Christmas dinner should come from there instead of their own oven....smart women I say.

After lunch we headed for Dunn Brother's coffee shop for a relaxing couple of hours. Randy had his laptop, Amanda had art supplies and I had some knitting.

A little before 5p.m. we left there for the movie theater. Saw Night at the Museum at the IMAX theater, really cute movie and even tho seeing it in that format is not a requirement for enjoying the movie, there were parts when the almost 3-D effects were really something. It is a cute movie and I highly recommend it if you get the chance.

The movie was over about 7 and we headed home. I got the fudge made and dishwashing caught up. We let Amanda open one of her gifts on Christmas eve and after that we watched some of the older childrens holiday specials that we have on tape and DVD.

The opening of one gift on Christmas eve started when
my brother and I were little. My parents eloped on christmas eve 1944 and when they could afford to give each other anniversary gifts they started letting my brother and I open one small gift too so we wouldn't feel left out. One set of grandparents (our Daddy's Dad and step Mom) never bothered to keep track of how old we were or what we were interested in so their presents were usually things like new wallets or fingernail clipper sets or boxes of handkerchiefs and when you are between the ages of 6-14, those are not exciting gifts ....soooooo those were the gifts we chose to open on Christmas eve. The tradition continued for both my girls and Lisa has continued it with her boys, but the gifts have gotten better. My girls got new nightgowns that night, Lisa's boys get new pjs and a book.

I do miss the excitement of Santa and waiting for sleep to overtake the super anxious child so Santa could get busy setting things out. But at the same time we have a new tradition and at our age this one suits us to a "T"

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