Christmas Eve

We started the day off with the very last activity of the boys advent calendar.  Dad was home to help the boys with their TREASURE HUNT!  It was a smashing success.  My grumpy almost 5 year old, when basking in the joy of his treasures told me, "Mom - that was a really great activity.  It was really nice of you to do that for us.  Do you think you can do it again for my birthday?"

Yes my boy.  I think I can.

We had a pretty lazy day, too.  The boys ran some errands and came home crazy.  I ran some errands to run away from all the crazy and grumpy boys.  Our house smelled delicious because we were in the teens on hours for our Christmas Eve roast (a 10 pound piece of meat that took 21 hours to cook on very low heat.).

Eventually, we got dressed and headed out to my grandpas house for our traditional Christmas Eve feast and program.  We weren't able to attend last year, but this year we did and it was great fun.

As my sister, my mom, and my aunt have already mentioned, Christmas just wasn't the same this year without my grandma.  I missed her terribly all weekend.  More than I ever imagined.  But, I didn't have a meltdown (saved all of those for her birthday in September and the entire week before Thanksgiving) - I only started crying (but pulled it together) three times on Christmas Day and driving away from her house after dropping off a few things on Christmas Eve.

My sister said it best - Christmas has always meant Grandma.  I was never as helpful as my sister, but for as long as I can remember, I've blocked out the week before Christmas to sit at her house, drink diet cokes, and wrap hundreds of presents.

Oh, the presents.

In fact, without realizing exactly what I was doing, I had all my presents wrapped as usual, with an entire week to keep my hands idle.  I got ready for her even though there wasn't anything to get ready for.  That, my friends, broke my heart.  My grandma loved Christmas so much and not having her there was hard.

But, we all survived.  We did it without her and we did it in a way that I hope still made her proud from heaven, watching us

Sorry for the tangent, back to Christmas Eve!  The food was yummy.  The company was good.  The program was great.  Our family should start a traveling choir - we sound great all crammed into my grandpa's living room singing Christmas songs - as long as you don't mind the fact that we're all a bunch of punks when singing.