I Agree...

We had a great Christmas at the Hall house.  Having Christmas fall on a Sunday is the best.  Annie thinks we should have church on Christmas, every year.  I agree.  It is a wonderful way to start out the day - getting the focus on the Person who's birth we are celebrating.  I love the singing, hearing all those voices lifted in worship, celebration, and praise.  During the service, the power went out.  We get very windy here in the Northwest, and lose our power often.  I was wondering if we were going to have to warm the ham in the bar-b-q, but only Annie's power was out.  We were fine, so when we got home from church I was able to get my cheesy potatoes in the oven and then the ham went in after that.  (I made my rolls the day before...)  We opened gifts around three.  I told you how Daniel likes big trucks (along with spiders, by the way, the spider was back the next morning, much to Daniel's delight.)  This picture doesn't show it, but when he opened the package that had this "little" shovel in it along with several other "little" earth movers, he danced around, clapping and cheering, it was so cute.

 We have a tradition when we are opening presents.  We go around the room, starting with the oldest.  They open one present while we all watch.  (Tim has me beat by six years, so no, it wasn't me.)  Then, we move on to the next oldest - yes, that would be me.  This is a lot of fun.  We get to watch the person's expressions and join in their joy, and the gift opening takes longer than five minutes.  The mess is less too.  We have a box in the middle of the floor and after the gift-opener is finished, they wad up the wrapping and try to make a basket in the box.  We were all finished, when my husband goes out of the room and then comes back in with this big box.  He blew me away with what was inside...

Yes, it was this Kitchen Aid mixer!  I love making homemade bread.  My bread machine recently gave up the ghost, and I had mentioned how I would love a Kitchen Aid mixer.  They come with a dough hook.  I started making my bread all by hand, after my bread machine died.  You have to knead the dough for eight minutes.  Now, with my new Kitchen Aid, it will do all that work for me!  My husband is wonderful!  

The power was still out at Annie's at bed time last night, so they stayed over night with us.  This turned out to be a lot of fun too.  This morning, I broke the new mixer in by making pancakes.   I have a great recipe using whole wheat pastry flour, so they are semi-healthy...

After breakfast, Annie and crew packed up.  Hugs and kisses were given and received, and off they went with their gifts and some left-over ham and Christmas cookies (which, next year, Lord-willing, I will make on my new Kitchen Aid mixer...)  Just before Annie left, she said, "Mom, we should spend the night every Christmas..."  

"I agree!", was my reply.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, too!