Celebrating Christmas

Well, Christmas is over. I'm very sad about this because if you haven't guessed yet, it's my favorite time of year. Although I have to say that putting up the tree and trimmings the day after Thanksgiving does make it a little easier to take it all down by the New year. I figured that once the trees needles start to get all over the floor it's time to take the stuff down. It was a nice tree this year (I will have pictures posted shortly). Our tree this year started out all nicely decorated and then slowly over the coarse of the month we pretty much moved all of the ornaments to the top where little Gideon fingers couldn't reach them. He loved the ornaments. I couldn't believe how much he wanted to touch them and hold them, and break them. This year I got wise though and bought some shatter proof ornaments on clearance for next year. Hopefully they will live up to their name. So, I think that I will give a run down on what our holiday was like...hope you enjoy.

Christmas eve was really nice. We started the day off by making cookies which I pretty much ended up doing. We then just kind of hung out with our little family until everyone got here. All of my siblings came for Christmas this year which was really great. We ended up at Bev's house this year for our 3rd annual Woodard(Kearns, Adderley) Christmas Extravaganza. It was a lot of fun. We ate some good Italian food and had lots of treats. We then went into the talent show. That's right I said talent show. Every family was able to share a talent with everyone else. My kids shared there beautiful singing voices, Brent did some interpretive dance for Bryan's fam, Bev and Demarco read the Christmas story, and Ben did a pretty good magic show. We then had our family gift exchange. We all have one other sibling that we buy for. We rotate down the line so this year we had Ben and Tracy. They are expecting their first baby in April so we got them baby stuff of coarse. It was a lot of fun to watch everyone open their presents and to just be together.

Christmas day we woke up to more snow...surprise surprise. I was watching the news and it said that we have gotten 92" of snow in the month of Nov/Dec...CRAZY. We opened our presents which was a mad house. The kids went wild. I will post video of it shortly. They got a lot this year, so much for sticking to our plan, one big gift and two smaller ones. We had fun watching them open it all though. After presents the kids went sledding with their uncles and cousins. They had fun but didn't last all that long. We then ended up back at Bevs to eat a Christmas lunch before everyone had to leave to make it to other commitments. All in all we had a really great Christmas this year. It is always good to spend time with family and to be able to reflect on the time that we are celebrating. My kids said something that was pretty cool..."you know mom, this isn't really when Jesus was born, we just get to celebrate his birth and remember why he came to earth." It really is about remembering isn't it. I thought that was pretty insightful for an 8 and 6 year old. I hope that you all had a really great Christmas season.

Oh, a little side note. My brother Bryan and his wife Rachel had their baby today. A little boy. This makes their 3rd boy. He is 7 lbs, 15 oz and 20 in long. They don't have a name picked out yet but I think they've narrowed it down to two possibilities. Jackson Benjamin or Jacob Benjamin or some variation of them. Of coarse they could throw something completely different into the mix. You never know with them. Congratulation Bryan and Rachel! So, I went to see them in the hospital today and they have picked a name.....Jackson Bryan Woodard. Cute huh!