Christmas 2012

I had such a wonderful Christmas with my family and I'm so grateful to my sister Sharon for bringing her family to visit for Christmas. We've spent the past six Christmases together and the thought of celebrating Christmas without Sharon's family is just sad!

I'm grateful that Sharon's kids get a two and a half week break from school because that meant that they could stay with us for 10 days. We had so much fun together! Sharon helped me update my scrapbook (I had lots of Christmas cards/photo cards to scrapbook), we went shopping, we watched TV/movies,  laughed and had lots of great talks.

On Christmas morning my mom and Chandra got me dressed and I was ready for the day by 8 AM. (This is early for me because we usually don't even start my morning routine until 8.) Sharon's kids always wait to come downstairs until I'm up in my wheelchair, which I think is sweet because I wouldn't want to miss out on any of the present opening. I tried to get ready quickly since I know how hard it is to wait to open Christmas presents when you're a kid!

The first thing we did was open stockings. Sharon always makes sure that her kids have awesome stockings full of candy, fun foods  and neat little toys/gifts. 

I love Sarah's expression in these next four pictures. She was so excited, and it's not even like she was opening an extravagant present (it was a little notebook). All of Sharon's kids were so excited about/so appreciative of their gifts.  It was so cute to hear them exclaim things like, "How did you know?!" or "Santa knew just what I wanted!"

Above is Rachel opening a Hello Kitty play dress, and below Elizabeth opening some oil pastels, Matt opening something I can't remember and Emily getting some Gerber puff treats.

After the kids spent a while exploring their stockings we ate breakfast. My mom found a new baked french toast recipe recently that she wanted to try, so Christmas morning was the perfect time to give it a whirl It was really yummy and everyone really liked it.

My sister Laura and her family arrived around 11 and we started opening our presents. We're the kind of family that opens presents one at a time instead of having a free-for-all where multiple people are opening presents at the same time. I know different families do things differently, but this is the way we always opened our Christmas presents when I was a kid. I really like doing it this way because it's fun to watch people open their gifts to see what they get. This one-by-one method is more slow going (and it took more than two hours for all 15 of us to open our presents), but I didn't mind. It was so much fun!

Above Sarah is opening a watch (don't you just love that face?!). Below Kate, Sarah and Rachel get tiny American Girl dolls and Mom gets a new Swiss Army knife keychain from me.

David gets a bear and Elizabeth helps me open my Christmas presents.

Sarah gets some Magic Treehouse books and Elizabeth gets a silk scarf made that Kate made in her gifted art class.

Laura's old hand mixer recently died, so she asked for a new KitchenAid hand mixer for Christmas. She's been wanting a big KitchenAid stand mixer for a long time, but they are expensive, so she settled and asked for a hand mixer. A bunch of us went in together on the stand mixer that Laura's been wanting and we were able to really surprise her.

The next six pictures tell the whole story. Laura starts to open a large box, then she sees the words "KitchenAid" on the box and wonders if it can really be a KitchenAid. It is! Her excitement causes her to cry. (Of course. It's Laura, after all!) She's grateful to Brett for orchestrating the whole thing. It was fun watching the surprise!

Above Elizabeth is giving me a picture she made in her gifted art class. Below, Sharon opens a scarf from Chandra and Mom opens a picture.

My sister Kristin made flower clips for Sharon's girls. They turned out so cute! Here is Sarah modeling hers. Below that, Chandra is opening opening a makeup case from  Mom and me.

I'm sad Christmas is over for another year, but I'm glad it was so wonderful and memorable.