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This year we hosted Christmas at our house. As lovely as Poppy is, she is mostly a toddler and we didn’t feel like we could bring our two dogs over to somebody else’s house. Adding puppy crazy to Christmas crazy is a lot to ask!
The plan was to have Joelle and her crew spend the night. We would all go to Mom’s for Christmas Eve and then head back to my house. My mom and Tim were going to drive over on Christmas day for dinner. Mother Nature had a different plan though. On Christmas we woke up to five inches of snow! Thank heaven we’d watched the weather reports and had Mom and Tim come stay the night. They prefer their own beds and a slower Christmas morning so they were good sports about all the crazy that comes with Christmas at our house! It was fun to have everybody under one roof. (It worked out so well because we had beds/rooms for all the adults and the kids were already planning on sleeping all together in the playroom.)
The morning started early for everybody but it was my Mom and I that went downstairs first. Had to let Poppy out! The kids were told to wait until 7am to come downstairs (even though the boys were awake at 4:30) and they came running out on the dot. They’d set an alarm. Ha!
This year Santa was good to the girls. They asked for radically different gifts. Kate wanted a weighted blanket. Sometimes she has trouble sleeping and we think between the weight and the cozy minky fabric we are having trouble getting her out from under it!
Ellie asked for an Apple Watch. A girl after my own heart! This has actually been a great gift because she is not allowed to use her phone at work but we can still text her because it will get to her on her wrist. We insist on buying into devices and Ellie was more than happy to help Santa out with this one.
Jill, as usual, had trouble finding a gift she wanted to ask for. What she settled on was a really nice pair of rubber boots. This girl is so practical! It’s actually a great gift because, given our weather around here, and the fact that she has to walk across campus most days, those boots are so useful! Santa even got her some cozy fleece boot liners and warm wool socks. She is planning on wearing these in the snow too!
The big gifts Allen and I gave the girls were experiences. Ellie and Kate helpfully left an ad for the Mama Mia show playing at the 5th Avenue theater. We told them it was sold out but we were big liars. We got tickets for all of us over a three day weekend so Jill could come too. We also got tickets to see Hamilton in New York City. We will be going to Cape Cod next summer and we thought this would be a good way to book end our trip! (The main gift Allen and I gave each other this year was fixing the leaks in our house so we figured this was a good way to enjoy some gifts too!)
It was another thoughtful gift year this year. Just a couple of examples…all three girls got together and gave me Kingdom Builder. I’ve really been enjoying the game on my iPad so it’s great to have the board game! Ellie gave Allen a new radio (old school) to listen to the pregame broadcast on the way to the Husky games. His old one was 20 years old! Kate gave Ellie a gift card for 5 Guys, her ultimate favorite restaurant. Jill gave Kate some sipper socks she really wanted and cute music box. So much goodness!
After breakfast the kids played out in the snow. Stephen prepared an awesome dinner and we all wore our crazy crowns. We had fun playing with all the cool toys the boys got and just spending time together! A perfect Christmas.
One last aside that I just had to share. In the Harrison house the reindeer bring games (reindeer games, get it?) for the family. When Jack was two he sang the list of reindeer with ‘Stupid’ replacing ‘Cupid’. It will live on forever!
Stay tuned for the Enebo Christmas. We will be celebrating with them next weekend up in Suncadia!