The Christmas Season

I love this time of year. Of course, it's taken several years for that to happen again after dad died - having kids certainly helped with that. Changes the entire experience when you get to experience it on "the other side." The festivities started with a staff party for GCC at Knollwood Country Club. It was a great time - hanging out with our best friends, eating great food, entertainment, gifts, and then downtime afterward with conversation and coffee. Good times.

Next was the staff party for Pages at the Turners - an absolute blast! I'll admit, I'm pretty picky about group games. I have very high standards! But Julie pulled through with some winners - and the "Elf" team (me, Keisha, Jeri, Jamie, Patty, Kimi, Michelle W., Jenny) cleaned house!! Fortunately, Mark got the best parts on tape so we'll have proof of what a slaughter ocurred on that wonderful December evening.

The next big event was the Christmas Eve service at GCC, for which the kids joined us in "big church" for the candlelight service. They thoroughly enjoyed the music and media. Abby's favorite part was "When Love Comes to Town" and Jacob liked the media "with the microphone with the blue light like the ipod commercial." Following the service, we went back to the McMullens for a gift exchange with our closest friends last night. All of the kids drew names, and all of the adults did the same. It was all kept as secret as humanly possible, and then the adults had to guess who bought their gift. It was a blast - the kids were thrilled not just to get their gifts, but in the buying for their very good friends. The whole thing was almost too much fun.

Adam worked most of the day today, with a short break for lunch at Martin's and a movie with the fam - Charlotte's Web. The kids really enjoyed it. Abby's favorite part was "when she saw the babies" and Jacob liked "when the girl stopped her dad from cutting up the little pig." Have to admit - I shed a tear over the death of a spider during this movie. A first (and probably last), to be sure. We dropped Adam off for the evening services and headed for the only open store in town - Meijer - for the very important cookie-making supplies that I had, as of yet, neglected to buy. That was an experience. Being that it was the VERY last store open, (Target and WalMart had closed at 6), everyone was at Meijer. The lines at the cash registers were miles long. Fortunately, we were in no real hurry and the kids were moderately well behaved, so we survived the experience. Afterall, Santa doesn't come if there aren't cookies, according to Abby. How does a parent argue with that??

The kids and I spent the rest of the evening making Christmas cookies, finishing up some Christmas gifts, playing XBox, and opening their Christmas Eve gifts from mom and dad - new jammies for each of them. Finally, they were off to bed and slowly to sleep. The excitement has been almost too much to bear. The wait is almost over!

Now for a couple of hours of wrapping...