We can get back to the daily life business that suits me so much better. I do apologize for the lack of Christmas posts this year and promise I will have some pre-written and ready to go for next year. I just was not in the Christmas spirit this year. I am not exactly sure how or why, but life sent us a few curve balls before Christmas that did not help. Namely sickness and a lot of doctor’s visits.

Part of the problem may also be that I am not a traditionalist. I rarely remember what we did the year before to do again next year. I also like to try new things all the time (except change the furniture which is another post) so doing the same thing year after year does not always appeal to me. Some things do stay the same, however.

Christmas Eve will always be at my parents. We do a birthday lunch because my dad and my Paige have birthdays on the 22nd and my niece has a birthday on the 14th of the next month. After lunch, we start with birthday presents and then go to Christmas presents. Supper is usually leftovers from dinner because we are all stuffed from lunch and the goodies put out after lunch. Supper also becomes optional. But the apple did not fall far from the tree here either. Rarely do things happen the same twice at my parents for various reasons. Things get forgotten. People can’t remember what was done the year before. But it is all good.

Christmas morning is at home. I did insist upon this from the time Jordan was a baby. With Shali, I really didn’t think it was too big of a deal to have our family Christmas wherever we landed. When Jordan was born, I decided that we would have our own Christmas in our own home Christmas morning. I like the consistency of this as well as having our own time as a family. I have no idea how I will address this when the kids get married and have lives of their own, but that is in the future and not now.

We usually have breakfast of French toast and, sometimes, apple fritters, on Christmas morning. French toast is a family favorite and very easy to do in the morning. Apple Fritters is a recipe from my great-grandmother and are delicious! I love them. I didn’t get them made this year, but there is always New Years Day! Maybe with Lemon Ricotta Beignets….yum!

Christmas lunch may be at home or the kids may go to their other grandparents. Afternoon and supper may also be at home with company. Now that we have entered the realm of dating, sometimes the girls have gone to their boyfriend’s family Christmas celebrations. This is actually fairly new for us and I am still adjusting a bit because I would just like to have everyone home!

The kids will have Christmas this weekend with their father, grandparents, and the rest of the family as well as a birthday celebration for the birthdays that are around Christmas. Hopefully, I will be starting to feel a little better and I will be out of town for the weekend.

I am grateful that Paige took the initiative to get the house decorated for Christmas. Although she swears she did not use every ornament and decoration we have, the house seems to say something else. Christmas baking did not get done at all due to the illness and busyness of our schedule. Jordan and I made our annual right before Christmas shopping trip. We went on the 23rd and found some excellent deals for presents. I thought we would be battling crowds more, but they were not too bad.

Now that the actual holiday is over, but the twelve days of Christmas are not, I am looking towards next year as well as looking back over the last year. While I am not trying to borrow trouble, I do see some troublesome things coming on the horizon for the country and think we may see some problems. I am also looking towards things we need to get done as a family as well as things I would like to post here. I am also looking for ways to make this blog more user-friendly and what I envision this blog to be.

Thank you to all of you who follow this faithfully and put up with my randomness as well as my busy schedule. I have several articles written already for this next year and I can’t wait to share them with you! We do go through some changes in our household and I have changed some of the ways we do things so I will be sharing those with you as well.

Happy New Years to You All and Thanks for Reading!

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