My parents 
had the tradition of cleaning and doing all the preparations on Christmas Eve day and then eating at a restaurant that evening to not dirty up the house. Then we'd take off for Grandma and Grandpa's house to exchange presents with the Paystrup side. Well, this is the first year that Tyra and Thomas were really involved with the tradition of doing heavy duty cleaning in preparation. Grandma Lee was coming in Christmas night so we were especially busy in the basement getting it sleep-able. It just amazed me to have them do 2 entire loads of laundry from bringing it down the stairs, putting it in with soap, switching it, drying it, etc. They had fun with all sorts of new jobs. So we went to Chevy's, one our most family-friendly restaurants around. Then we let the kids choose one gift to open. The girls chose their gifts from Grandma and Grandpa so it was right in line with my traditions. Tyra and Thomas each opened the gift from each other. Poor Thomas, he's so hard to buy things for, it's no wonder he doesn't get excited for presents. He got a set of Encyclopedia Brown books, and I felt bad for him at the time, but you know, he's read them all and really enjoyed them.
All the kids got great gifts and I don't mean to make it a gift-log here, and I hope I don't offend someone by not mentioning or picturing their gifts. I just thought it was interesting to note that one of the main things Tyra wanted was an MP3 player, which she got and listened to all day except when she was sharing songs with other people. She just loved some of the really touching Christmas songs by Amy Grant and it reminded me of how powerful and important listening to music was for me as a teenager.
Thomas' favorite Christmas present, by far, was the Wii. The Lee family all gathered on Dec 1st to exchange gifts and have their yearly Christmas gathering (due to people traveling and what not later in the month) so we enjoyed that gift for a full 25 days before Christmas. It was actually given to us by Jon's best friend Brian who comes along to family gatherings often.
We like Brussel Sprouts, but I hadn't planned on having them Christmas dinner until I saw them at Giant being sold right on the stalk. I had never thought of how brussel sprouts might grow. I wonder how many other foods I eat that I have no idea about what it looks like before it hits my plate. I should probably read some of those new books on food and society...And here's Tyra with the Oreo cheesecake pudding pie she helped me make.
1 comment:
fun! we had an early family Christmas this year too, since my bro got back from his mission the first week of Dec. It was nice having half the family Christmas finished early in the month. Makes it last longer, indeed.
I never knew that about brussel sprouts either!! how cool is that.
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