Christmas with Aunt Sandy, David & Matt

This year it’s a little different because I had surgery and I'm not sure how much or when I will get my Christmas decorations up, so I am using pictures from the past and present.  I decorate almost the same every year.

Our Christmas season begins the day after Thanksgiving.  
Uncle Moose always hated putting up the decorations, yet loved shopping on black Friday.  I LOVED putting up the decorations but hated shopping.   So it worked out well.  He would leave all day and go shopping while I would do all the decorating.  I would start about 7 am and it would take me to 7 pm (at least) to finish everything.  As you know from my previous post, I lost a lot of decorations in the flood, so I don’t do as much as I use to.   One of my favorite things to do is take all the pictures in the house and cover them in Christmas paper and then hang them back up.  I cover my curio cabinets with Christmas paper too. 

On Christmas Eve I always give the boys a Christmas Eve gift; nothing huge usually; maybe a new hat, gloves, etc.   Then we go to Grandma & Grandpa's (Papa and Nani to us) for PRIME RIB dinner.  It is the highlight of the day.  It’s always a fantastic meal and we always talk about past funny stories (and give Grandpa a hard time).  One of the big things at Nani’s house was putting the baby Jesus in the manger.  Every year a different boy got to do it – Nani would write it on her calendar to ensure she knew whose turn it was.

 

Christmas Eve Dinner

 

Grandma putting Baby Jesus in the manger

Our traditions on Christmas Day have changed as we all had more kids and more places to go.   We now have a “semi” routine down...Mom & Dad get up, open their gifts to each other and then come to my house.   We give them their gifts and they see what the boys got.  Then they leave and go to Donna's house and the boys go to their Dads, I usually take a nap!  We all meet up again at Nani/Papa’s around 5pm to open the gifts they have for us and have dessert there.  One of the pictures I always try to get is the boys with Nani & Papa every year.  Sometimes we do it at our house and sometimes we end up getting all the kids together at their house.
 

I always made the boys wait upstairs while I went down to ensure that Santa came and to turn on all the lights, camera, etc.   The boys have spots they sit in every year, in front of the tree, mostly so I can get pictures of both of them.

 

 

 

David, Matt & Dutch

 

 

Here are various pictures of the decorations that I have done in the past.  As you will see I love the house all decorated.  I have all my villages and various lights set on timers so they come on at 4pm and off at 10pm.  I gave the boys the option of doing outside decorations/lights and they didn’t want to put them up (OR take them down) so we don’t have any outside only inside.  They don’t even like having to help me decorate inside but this year I had to FORCE them because I couldn’t do some of it myself.

My table decorated for the holiday's

 
Below is our tree after Santa came one year.  Notice the Pooh Angel on the tree that I had for a while.  The other picture is a ice skating rink.

                                      

 

 

 

 

These are pictures from this year.   I have everything bought, wrapped and decorated and its 11/27/13.  The only thing I have left to do is put up the Christmas tree.  I will probably do that this weekend when the boys are here to bring it up and put it together (YES it’s fake….I prefer fake trees over real ones… always have).
 

All the pictures on the wall are covered and the Pooh globes are out

 

 Our stocking holder and the picture on the right used to light up but the flood broke it

 

 

 This is my manger that I bought the year I got married...1982

 

I put wreaths on both doors

 

 

I wrap both curio cabinets and put holiday animals on top

 

All the kitchen cabinets get a decoration along with the stove!

 





 

 

I have two villages left after the flood, one is the 100 acre woods – which I am sure everyone knows is Winnie the Pooh’s home base and it is one of my favorite sets. 
  

I have a village that I have been slowly building through the years.   About 4 years ago I stopped buying pieces for it unless they have someone in the family’s name on it.   I put this on a 6' table; put wrapping paper around the bottom and then set the houses up on top.  They are also on a timer so they light up every day without me having to do anything.  Below are pictures of the entire village along with pieces that are named or reminded me of someone in the family!

 

Ryan's Bicycle Shop and a fire station for Uncle Dave

Betty's Diner for Grandma Hagadorn who was called Betty when we lived in Albany

 

Mike's Boathouse

 

Matt's Cycle Shop

 

Uncle Moose bought this because he loves a Casino

These are some of the Winnie the Pooh holiday globes that I collect.  I only bring them out at Christmas Time

Overall, as you might have realized Christmas is my favorite time of year.  I overdue the decorations, the gift giving and I don’t even care.   If I could, I would love to have the entire family (all of you) together for Christmas but no-one will move up to “God’s country”.