On December 20 - Red Sweater Sunday - Marnie Bellamy and I played our two piano pieces, Away in a Manger and Angels We Have Heard on High, for the Facebook/Online Worship Service at our church. We love playing together and our pieces were well-received for the Glory of God. We had pre-recorded 4 piano pieces, Joy to the World and O Holy Night, for the virtual Christmas Eve service adding Janet Parks and Sam Lucas who was substituting for Brenda Ford.
Christmas Eve, we drove to Overland Park to start our family festivities. We arrived after lunch and opened gifts shortly after - Garrison was so excited. He passed out all the gifts (each person has their own paper, so it is easy) and stacked his up. He had a list of gifts he wanted for Christmas and marked off things received when he opened them. It was hilarious. The kids each read their Christmas Poems from Grammy - a tradition since Peyton was born in 2008. Their monetary gifts this year were disguised as Girl Scout Cookies, in the boxes and folded like cookies, but it didn't fool them for long.
We continued two other traditions with frosting and decorating Jesus' birthday cake and making a Rice Krispie wreath. We had fun and lots of laughs.
We were brave and went to Rye for dinner. They had limited seating, and we had no one close around us, so we felt very safe. We had a yummy yummy dinner which began with Old Square drinks where they lit the orange peel before adding, making for an interesting time. After we got home, we lit the candles and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and enjoyed a piece of his birthday cake before the kids went upstairs for Chad to read The Night Before Christmas to them - they also put out cookies and milk for Santa of course.
Christmas Morning we all gathered downstairs to discover what Santa had brought. The funniest was Garrison who received new golf clubs which were not in the box, sitting right in front of him, but he didn't see them for a long time. Peyton loved her new Apple Watch. Breakfast followed - eggs, turkey bacon and cherry coffee cake. We had a blast then came home before lunch so they could have lunch as a family and then they went to see Grandma and Grandpa Todd in the afternoon.
We picked up the kids on Tuesday after Garrison's basketball practice. While we were waiting on him to get home, Peyton chose for us to pick up dinner from Tropical Paradise - wraps and delicious smoothies - to eat together. We arrived in Clinton around 8:30 p.m. We had a great couple of days just chilling out playing games - bingo, Old Maid, Trouble and Crazy 8's - and fixed a taco bar (they love to fix the food - Peyton fries the hamburger - Garrison chops veggies - and had other kitchen fun. We watched a movie together - Good Luck Charlie - did the hokey pokey and the chicken dance which was hilarious (glad no one filmed it).
We took them home Thursday afternoon - made lots of memories until next time. We always love having them. Typically we take them somewhere close over Christmas break to stay in a hotel, swim in the pool, etc., but not in 2020! Hopefully 2021.
We are so blessed and thank God for the blessings of our family love.
No comments:
Post a Comment