Christmas Day 2006

Our Nativity Scene is 20 years old
hand-carved from olive wood in the Holy Land

There’s nothing quite like having sons home from college to mellow out Christmas morning.  They stayed up late into the night, talking like brothers, watching dvds, playing with cats.  Husband says he heard them in the kitchen long after I was snoring.

I was up at the crack of dawn because that’s when my medicine has worn off and my back is protesting being in bed too long.  I fed our cats, under the watchful eye of Scratchy, our guest cat.  His bowl, water, and litter box are set up down in Lucas’s room.

I set the tea to brew, took my pill, did my 10 minutes of wake-up exercises, then came over to see if anybody had Christmas Info up on their blogs.
I tried to say Merry Christmas everywhere I could—I sure had fun!

Of course, the guys being up so late, they weren’t eagerly out of bed too early.
We had our French toast and sausage at about 11:30 in the morning, then began the gift opening at 12:30.

Years ago, we established that Christmas morning was not to be a free-for-all, when everybody tears into the carefully wrapped and labeled packages and seems to be self-absorbed and important to see how much loot they got.  Nope, our gifts are given out one at a time and each person is center stage for a couple minutes.  It might seem to take forever, but by golly, we try to make a gift about the loving care of the giver, not the stuff inside the box.

Lucas declared because he has the longest, most bushy beard that He would play Santa Claus and distribute the gifts.  I became the secretary, keeping the list of who gave what to each person, usually to make writing Thank You notes easier.

We got good stuff.  I can’t say that I had a favorite, since I really don’t need anything.  We’ll be watching dvds of The DaVinci Code and CARS sometime in the near future, and I’ll be reading ‘an estrogen rich collection of cartoons’ book with the title Women of Substance, which came in a box as a surprise, alongside some jars of jelly from blogfriends Mary and Jay.

The sons got money or gift cards from just about everybody, since they know the details of their own interests.  Although I did please Chris with a package of socks.  I guess since I do the laundry, I see what brands and fabrics come through most often and figure those are his favorites.

The cats, especially the young guest, have been having much fun with ribbons and wrapping paper in the middle of the living room.  We left it there quite awhile for their enjoyment.

One of my favorite things to do is bake.  And to have uninterrupted time on a holiday is so much fun.  I decided last week that I would like to try an Italian Cream Cake recipe from an old cookbook sold by a church as a moneymaker.  It wasn’t very well-written, no size of pan nor its preparation was given.  My guess was a bit off, so there was overflow and sticking to the bottom.  Experience did fill in a few gaps of the writing.

The end result is quite tasty.  The cream cheese frosting is worth all the crumbs and other work.

I’m calling it my “Happy Birthday, Jesus” cake because it is the first layer cake I’ve baked and frosted in at least 18 years.  Our usual cake of choice would be Pepperidge Farm from the freezer at Kroger’s.

I called my mother and we talked for an hour.  She’s wondering where our newsletter is.  Good things come to those who wait.

She gave me the news that my nephew asked his longtime girlfriend for her hand in marriage.  When she answered Yes, he gave her a nice diamond ring as her Christmas gift.  I think it’s cool that my sister Denise got her ring one Christmas, and now their son has done the same.

My goodness, look at the lateness of the hour!  The only time I went outside today was to carry out the trash bags.
Still, I’m heading off to bed.
~~love and Huggs, Diane