I thought this topic would be a good place for us all to tell about our Christmas celebrations. We had ours yesterday.

I usually take off running at Thanksgiving and I don't hit the wall (which as any runner knows, is where the pain stops and the joy starts) until the night before the big day. Then when everyone arrives, I am so joyful I can hardly stand it. This year, I could only run in my head and I'm here to tell ya' my head was going in circles.

Yesterday was our big day. All the kids and grandkids, in-laws, family, and a couple of lonesome friends came and we had a wonderfully simple family Christmas. Usually everything is decorated beyond belief and we have a huge sit down dinner of turkey and ham with all the trimmings. We have candle light and cloth napkins. Everyone eats themselves into a near coma then we go to the great room to open every gift known to man. The tree in the great room usually has white lights and a collection of irredescent ornaments.
I got the candles and place settings on the big table and Dan put all the white lights on the tree. He got over inspired and put them all on the the inside parts of the tree. He had to buy more, but he accidentally got colored lights so he put them on the outside of the limbs. He never got the ornaments on, but it was strangely pretty.

This year we skipped the huge dinner because I simply cannot cook standing on one foot. Also I had to scoot upstairs to the great room on my behind and I wanted to do it in private. It's not a pretty picture.
The gifts turned out to be mostly re-runs and left overs from previous years because much to my surprise, Dan is a lousy shopper. You send him out for gifts and he comes home in shock from the crowds and frustrated beyond belief. He can never find anything and he usually just gives up and goes to the grocery store for a bunch of muffins and a couple of cartons of milk. Where did I get this guy?

The kids all thought the wheelchair was the best toy of all so I lay on the couch with my foot up while they wheeled wildly around the great room. Much to my dismay Dan bought the six grandsons some kind of lazer gun game which they of course loved. After the wheelchair race, they chased each other around the yard and up the creek with the guns.
They got all muddy, but they had a blast and none of the parents had a breakdown about the mud. I would never have bought the guns for fear of offending the more PC parents. Instead they all laughed about how they gave up on disarmament when the boys all began trying to shoot each other with anything they could find anyway.

Everyone at least pretended to love the weird gifts and no one complained about the chili and munchies instead of the huge Christmas dinner. I painted a Christmas tree on my cast and the grandkids loved it. It was definitely not my dream, but somehow it all worked out.

smile

[ December 20, 2004, 03:33 PM: Message edited by: smilinize ]

Ahter all Smile isn't Christmas and being together about the love, friendship and companionship? It sounds like your holiday celebration was filled with all three. Don't know where you got that man either but if men like your Dan grew on tree's what a fortune you could make and I'd be first in line, money in hand...Oh wait a second, move over JJ, stop shoving, put down that stick, there are plenty for everyone, geesh what a brat!!!