Christmas Measured Very Well

(photo taken with old camera. Will be trying with new camera. These are OLD school colored lights).

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Mine was everything that my heart desired. On Christmas Eve I had one more gift to buy and grocery shopped for Christmas Eve dinner and our Christmas Day spread. We made Christmas cookies with the cookie cutters and five colors of frosting in piping bags (I desperately need a timer as I forget about the oven and burned a bunch of them). I used Alton Brown’s cookie dough recipe and it was wonderful.

We enjoyed prime rib and mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts I sautéed with bacon (the boys had canned green beans), and spinach salad. And brownie sundaes for dessert. On Christmas Day morning we have cinnamon rolls and then we have dinner/lunch buffet whenever I get around to it. I call it “party food”. I seriously heard one of my sons tell his Grandma on the phone that I made “party food” for Christmas dinner. I warm up a ham and rolls, microwave mac ‘n cheese, buy a shrimp cocktail ring, make broccoli casserole, crudities, dips, cheese cubes, guacamole and chips and deviled eggs…and we then eat in the family room and watch a new dvd (Night at the Museum 2).

(This is our tree two days before Christmas. It was bare under there since the Sunday after Thanksgiving when it went up. I start wrapping a few days before Christmas. We start with the gifts the brothers buy for each other. Wrap central is in our bedroom and after each gift is wrapped I put it in the hallway and slam the door back closed to do more. The boys carry them down to the tree. The excitement mounts.)

The boys don’t wake up super early anymore on Christmas and when they do they go to their stocking and keep themselves busy (those stockings were overflowing!—why do I always worry that there are not going to be enough stocking stuffers? I could do a post alone on what was in them). The two youngest boys share a room and they both got up at 8:30 a.m. Our second floor has a loft so it is easy to hear them so we got up too. We saw that the Oldest’s stocking was all over the couch so we accusingly asked the other two if they had gone through it but they had not. Surprise, surprise, Oldest had gotten up at 7:30, went through his stocking and then went back to bed. Santa always wraps his presents in red wrap, and he is so crazy busy that sometimes days later a gift is found outside in the bushes after falling out of his sack from the rooftop.

We are lucky that everyone received what they wanted, along with a few surprises.

And there was a surprise for me made on Christmas Eve by a busy elf (Hubs) in his workshop. Remember the boy’s measurements on the wall incident? A couple months ago I asked for a piece of wood – like a 4”x6” painted white so I can start charting the boys’ growth again. This is what he made:

I love the colors. I would never have the patience to paint the never end line of squiggles on each side. This is a piece of molding that has a curve—shaped just perfect for a head to line up and be measured! My new growth chart stick has now been hung in our laundry room, right above the base board (which is 3 inches so the markings are in accordance). He painted a line of every 6 inches, with 36”, 48”, 60”, 72” and 84” marked. The middle of the board has been left white and has no varnish so that I can mark a line with a fine pen with the boys’ initials and the date. I think he should sell these and ship them—don’t you think so? I saw one on the internet that looks like giant ruler and others that have “nursery room” themes, but this looks like his artwork. Oh yeah, he paints too. Here's a close up.

I told several people that on Christmas I like to stay in my pajamas until 3:00 p.m. Well, that didn’t happen. Because I stayed in them ALL day. Well, OK, I did take a walk so I changed out of them for that, but after a shower I was right back in them and my new robe.

Now it’s back to work for a few days and then another 4-day weekend. You are going to celebrate the Blue Moon on 12/31, right? It’s once every 19 years that it falls on New Year’s Eve.