Finally I have a few minutes to sit down and write about our Christmas. With Mike off of work, the whole family sick for the last two weeks and Christmas arrangements I have not had a second to myself…and when I did, I wanted to nap not blog.
So Christmas preparations started for us on November 26th, when we put up our Christmas tree and decorations. I actually hate decorating the Christmas tree. I like things done a particular way and my kids have picked up on this over the years…now they push my buttons with the things that drive me crazy. I also don’t like references such as “we should replace the angel on our tree with the devil”…I think that if you want to celebrate Christmas then you should have belief in the reason for the day…just my opinion. So, I have pictures of everyone else decorating the tree while I sat on the couch holding my tongue (which did not work out so well for me). We have always had a real tree for Christmas. Our first two Christmas’s together we actually went out into the bush to cut down our tree. But that second Christmas, as we were taking down our tree we realized that there were bug cocoons all over the tree. We started buying our trees from Home Depot after that nightmare! This year we finally got modern decorations and tried to have a theme for our tree.
I have lost the pictures from this day...I will find them I am sure, but I wanted to post this instead of waiting until I found the pictures.
Fast forward to the 10th of December which was set aside for the Minelli family Christmas celebration. I know…really early, but try getting all of us together without conflicts. This evening calls for a lot of preparation. Nana takes all of the cousins (Cody, Emily, Nathan, Matthew, Sam and Julia) out shopping. Each child buys a present for each of their cousins and their parents. On the 10th the kids were able to open their presents. It is amazing how well these kids know each other and how they can chose something appropriate without going over budget. We also have an amazing dinner and spend some much needed time together.
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| Nathan and Nana |
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| Matthew |
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| Cody |
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| Mike and Julia |
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| Emily |
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| Sammy |
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| Nona |
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| Julia opening her presents |
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| Nathan opening his presents |
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| Matthew opening his presents |
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| Sammy opening his presents |
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| Emily opening her presents |
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| Cody opening his presents |
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| Nona with her great grand children |
Our boys left four days before Christmas to spend time with their other parents. We did not have them Christmas morning but they returned to us for supper on Christmas day. We had thirty people at our house for dinner, most of them Mike’s family. Actually, I only had my parents there from my side of the family. Nona was ecstatic that her whole family was together for Christmas as it has been many years that we have been able to celebrate together. She made a big speech and brought tears to our eyes. I had lots of help with cooking dinner: Tony and Laure (family friends) made the bread, brought fruit and brandy; Barb (Mike’s mom) made the head cheese (yuck), lasagna and gravy; Marilyn and Hans (my mom and stepdad) made the cabbage rolls, Mike (my husband) made the mashed potatoes and helped me make the perogies and Nona put together the salad. Everything went off without a hitch and I had so much fun.
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| Nona with ALL of her great grand children |
Our Christmas morning was actually on Boxing Day. Mike’s parents and my mom and stepdad came over first thing in the morning for Julia’s first Christmas. The boys were pretty excited when they got their IPod’s (lucky kids!). They enjoyed all of their gifts this year. We kept the amount of presents they got this year to a minimum since we usually go overboard. Julia was very cute opening presents although of course she wasn’t really too much into it. Summer opened her own gifts this year, it was pretty funny.
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| Matthew got his Ipod touch |
Boxing Day afternoon, my dad and brother came over for some quality time together. All the boys went skidooing for a bit in the afternoon and then we had an early supper. I do not have any pictures unfortunately…don’t know why I didn’t remember to pull out my camera.
The boys are gone again to their other parents so it was just the three of us for New Years Eve. Julia did not make it to the end of the night, she is still a little sick. Mike and I made it 12:01 and then we went to bed. For New Years day, we invited Nona and Marco over for dinner. Nona was unable to make it because she was sick but Marco came and it was nice to spend some time with him (he did not make it to Christmas dinner).
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| Julia's first meal of the new year |
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| This is what we were doing on 01-01-11 at 11:11 |
That’s it…our Christmas. I know, quite a long post…would have been better to break it up but like I said, I have just been too busy!! I hope everyone had a happy and safe Christmas/New Year.
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