Tag Archives: Christmas 2014

Three Full Days…

Before we are swept into 2015 I’ll share our full three days of celebrating…

We had a very quiet Christmas Eve. Early in the morning we braved the parking lots at Costco and Safeway and bought the last minute items we needed for Christmas day. We bought a Costco rotisserie chicken and macaroni & cheese for any hunger pangs we might have as we got ready for Christmas day.

Our Christmas Eve service followed the theme of peace in the midst of pain and chaos. We enjoyed singing traditional Christmas carols with a few modern twists and we even had snow fall during the service inside church! After work on Christmas Eve Andrew and Katie arrived for the night enjoying our treats from Costco and after Dear and I went to sleep I heard Josh and Laura arrive for the night after they celebrated with Laura’s family.

Early on Christmas morning Dear and I heard some ducks quacking and it took us a while to spot them on the neighbor’s roof. A quacky good morning made us smile.

More presents were added next to the tree as Dear and I slept.

We woke the kids up to a favorite Christmas CD by Twila Paris to see what gifts Santa delivered to our stockings.

Our breakfast table was all ready to go for our traditional Christmas morning breakfast of Swedish Pancakes that Dear makes for us.

After breakfast I changed out the table for our Christmas Dinner with two places added for Dan and his fiance Jamie who were on the road from Eastern Washington to join us for dinner and the rest of the weekend.

Christmas Day 008Our meal on Christmas day was our traditional Prime Rib Roast and Yorkshire pudding with roasted root vegetables and creamed corn.

Our kids with their loves!

The original family with our three children.

Our oldest, Josh, married Laura in 2001.

Our youngest, Katie, married Andrew in 2011.

Our middle son Dan who will be married to Jamie in 2015.

All of us together.

The day after Christmas we had another fun evening celebrating Dan and Jamie’s engagement and Katie’s birthday with family and friends. We had appetizers and Dear’s Tomato Rice Soup for our gathering.

Katie, Andrew, Steve (BIL), Lana (My sister), Beth (mother of Dan’s best friend growing up), Dan, Jamie

Laura, Dave (Father of Dan’s best friend growing up), Dear, Ellen b., Josh and Katie. Unfortunately Dan’s best friend growing up was home sick along with his little daughter so his family wasn’t able to join us.

We toasted Dan and Jamie and then we sang to Katie before she blew out the candles on her Applesauce Spice Birthday Cake.

Our hearts are full and flowing over.

Dan and Jamie left our home on Sunday morning headed across the mountains again to Eastern Washington. We got the text that they arrived safely and that is always a good text to receive.

How are things at your place?

Here and There…

Here on Friday night we had our nephew Caleb with his wife Marie with us for dinner and dessert and a little catch-up on what’s going on in our lives. Caleb and Marie live in Santa Barbara so we don’t get to see them often. It was fun to have these cousins together in Washington. This might have been the first time that Andrew met them in person.

On Sunday we went “there” to Tacoma to spend a few hours celebrating with our beautiful friends that include our family in many special occasions.

Wonderful food, drink and conversations with these treasured friends celebrating our Savior.

Lucy * Katie * Jamie * Bridget

It was great to see these four beauties together. It’s been a long time. Jamie has just gotten back from a two year trip around the world on her own. Lucy, Jamie and Bridget are sisters and Katie has pretty much grown up with them as her friends. Jamie was Katie’s maid of honor.

Just in case you missed our great news that I posted on Saturday, I’ll repeat it here. Our son Dan asked his girlfriend Jamie to marry him and she said yes. We are looking forward to a wedding in 2015 over there in Dan and Jamie’s neck of the woods.

Palisade 003I’m happy to report I’m headed to the post office on Monday to finally mail off our Christmas cards. We have a few free days until Christmas. We’ll have a quiet Christmas Eve attending a service at church. On Christmas day we’ll have a full day of celebrating. Josh, Laura, Katie and Andrew will spend the night here on Christmas Eve and wake up for stockings and breakfast. Dan and Jamie will arrive from Eastern Washington in time for dinner so we’ll wait to open gifts till after dinner. We are looking forward to seeing the ring in person and hearing about details and plans.

I’ll probably be scarce for a while. How are things coming along at your house?

Without the Guests…

…the preparations are in vain. It’s because of the long-awaited guests that the preparations were completed. This time of year as we remember our long awaited Savior who came to earth on that first Christmas, the preparations for my guests had more significance.  Most of my guest photos were taken by Anneliese and Lovella. Thank you for sharing girls!

Lovella brought this very cute flower arrangement as a hostess gift and I found the perfect spot for it next to my sign that Katie wrote on. It was time for the party to begin and for everyone to eat, drink and be merry!

Kathy and Lovella prepared an Antipasti Platter for us all to enjoy before we sat down to dinner.

Our daughter Katie came to help with the serving.

It was time to find our places at the table.

When everyone found their spot we sang Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow. This has become a tradition for our gatherings.

Katie made sure the soup was hot before she served each person their cup.

Between the courses we sang Christmas Carols. O Tannenbaum and Silent Night were the two chosen and sung in English and German. I wasn’t surprised by the choices my “German” guests made.

It was time to get the dessert plates ready.

After dessert we had fun popping our Christmas poppers and wearing our crowns.

Before the girls retreated to another room to open the little gifts purchased for each other, Judy handed the guys their gift for the evening.

They each got their very own apron…

I’ll add the shout out to the young man who makes these to sell once I get the information from Judy. Since we let him use our logo he gifted us with the aprons for our “boys”.

By this time my eyes were drooping but my heart was full. I’ll leave you with a few closeups and cameos…

I got a kick out of this wine bag that Bev and her guy brought us a bottle of wine in.

What a wonderful world God opened up to us “Girls” over these past several years. I’m so thankful that God brought us together and has deepened our “love for one another”.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2: 1-4)

More Xmas 006Praying you are feeling the Joy this Christmas!

Unveiling of the Mystery Tree

Some of you are new to my blog and aren’t familiar with a Christmas tradition we started several years back to take the stress out of finding the perfect Christmas tree. Our “Mystery” tree tradition goes like this…

We go to the nearest big box store and look for a tree in a certain height with a straight trunk and grab it with it’s string or netting in tack. This year the 6-7ft. trees in the Douglas Fir variety were about $25.00. We throw the tree in the back of the truck and head home wondering what it might look like once we cut away all the string.

This year it took most of the afternoon for the branches to relax as we had freezing temperatures here in the Seattle area and the tree was frozen. As it thawed we could see that it was another fine Mystery Tree choice. We’ve resigned ourselves to be happy with however it might look. Once the lights and decorations are added I’ll show more photos.

Slowly but surely it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas at this old house.

I was so excited to see that WordPress is continuing their tradition of adding snow to my blog for the month of December!

Have you gotten your tree or started your decorating for Christmas?

I’ll be linking up to ABC Wednesday for the letter U soon. Thank you ABC Team and Denise Nesbitt!