I did miss some caroling on Sunday night though, but we ended up being caroled three times: twice I was home, and twice Rebecca was home. May God bless those carolers, because I LOVE it when carolers come by. We prepped the rest of the time by listening to Christmas music, and we went and looked at lights in our neighborhood, and of course we did most of our shopping on Amazon Prime, as well as counting down the days with our Advent calendar every night, but our real Christmas season started when my brother Steven flew in on the evening of the 23rd of December.
We were so excited, our last family visitor for Christmas had been seven years prior. We stopped off at Taco Bell on the way home, and oddly enough I think that was the only time that we went out for food during his entire trip. We also continued our tradition of watching "Christmas Story" to kick things off right, and put out our luminaries.
Christmas Eve is our big celebration day, and both Rebecca and I were scheduled to be off-work. That morning Steve & I played video games, and then went out to pick up a few things for the next day. That evening, we had the continuation of a tradition introduced by parent's tradition of bring home leftovers from a deli tray from Jack's Auto Service days: our own specialized deli tray arranged by Rebecca (heaps of good meats and cheese), supplemented by tamales (from Corona's restaurant here near us, so much easier to pick up 8 or 9 tamales than for Rebecca to make a bunch just for us, although Rebecca's are much better), tons of different cookies & candy, chips and dip, a veggie tray, and sherbet ice-cream punch. We watched "Mr. Krueger's Christmas," the "Joy to the World" DVD from the LDS church, and ended with 'A Christmas Carol", the one with Patrick Stewart, which is the best version in my opinion.
We then sang Christmas carols, and instead of our normal two voices a capella singing, we had a Christmas upgrade as Steven played piano music from his phone, and added a third voice. We then read from our Nativity book "When Jesus was born in Bethlehem" by Joseph Brickey, an artbook that has pictures to correlate with the scriptures from the New Testament. We have read this each year we have been married, and keep notes on the book cover so that we can remember each year's most important part of our Christmas celebration. It was kind of late by then, and we exchanged gifts, including a tradition from Rebecca's family, new sleepwear. Luckily the sleepwear we procured for Steven fit perfectly, which was great as we keep our thermostat pretty low on winter nights (normally 53, all the way up to 56 with him visiting).
It was now past 11 pm, and I will let Rebecca tell the details on her blog if she so chooses, but I was so proud of her Christian service. She had offered to watch a couple of her daycare children as the mother went into labor with a Christmas baby, and she went to go stay with the kids. She was very distraught at leaving Steven alone, but I told her that we would play video games & it would be just like she went to bed.
The next morning, we awoke to the wonderful smell of Rebecca cooking breakfast, with two little kids joining us for Christmas. I'm sure it was not how she wanted to spend Christmas, but she really shows me how to be nice to people. I personally could not believe that neither of their parents were there to help, but not my business. It was my business to tell Rebecca to put her foot down for the 26th though. There is a fine line between being kind and having people walk over you.
The great window dressing (as we didn't go outside in it), was that it started snowing on Christmas Day, giving us all a White Christams. When we moved here, we thought every Christmas would be a White Christmas, but it turns out this was maybe our third, possibly fourth time, out of now ten Christmases in Colorado.
We intended to see the third Hobbit movie on the 26th, but it was sold out, so we got tickets for the 27th, which gave Rebecca time to use her certificates to the Quilt store, and start another project. She had made these cool Star Wars hand towels for Steven, and I got to keep the "prototype" first one she made. What she does is quite impressive, this year I know that she made my Dad a wall decoration, my mother a quilt, and her father a quilt, and a quilt for Kenzie, one of our daycare kids. So we were all mostly upstairs, she enjoyed her hobby, and we enjoyed SWTOR on the 25th and 26th, celebrating SWTOR Life Day, and enjoying all the yummy leftovers until the 27th.
Saturday the 27th was our "outside the house" day. Rebecca made her famous buttermilk fried chicken (which lasted us all day), and we all went for one hour massages at Greenleaf Massage. We came home & prepped for a showing of the Hobbit. We went to Flatirons 14, where we all enjoyed the plush Pleather reclining seats offered there; yes there are less seats now with the recliners & reserved seating, but those seats are most excellent!
Steven went to church with us on Sunday for our last 1 pm start time (9 am this year). The Niners were out of the playoffs, so on Sunday I didn't even bother watching their last game. We enjoyed as much time with him as we could before we had to take him to the airport that evening. Luckily he avoided a very cold snap that began the next day.
It was so hard to say goodbye, we enjoyed him being here so much. I hope that he enjoyed himself too, and we are so grateful he came out to visit us, as we know it was expensive to fly for Christmas. Come back again next year Steven, you are always invited!
Don't forget, Becky made me a cute Halloween table runner too! I love that our Christmas Eve traditions are so similar. I guess they just stuck with us when we grew up! By the way, Mickey's Christmas Carol is the best version, just sayin'! :)
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