Christmas comings and goings

As promised I am back to recount the Wood Family Christmas 2010. Also, as promised, it will be neither interesting nor important, but here it is nonetheless.

(And may I interject here that had I known the Tale of the Christmas Shonkey would be such a rousing success, I would have blogged about it years ago. My apologies for holding on to that little gem for so long.)

Now, on to Christmas 2010. It consisted of:

Christmas Cards
I made mine on Shutterfly in early November. They were addressed and in the mail right after Thanksgiving and I heard from many that ours was the first card received of the season. I don't know what got into me. I was so on top of it. Not only that, but I sent out 2 different sets of cards! That's right folks, I got creative. Now, don't go gettin' hostile if you didn't receive the "special edition" card. That was for a select few. Actually, it was for my Peeps. I decided to surprise them and make a card with pictures from all of our past Christmas parties. I'm quite proud of it so I'll give everybody a little peek.
This also doubled as their Christmas present from me so, in case any of them are still waiting for that to be delivered let them now be informed: It was delivered. By your friendly postman. Open and enjoy. You're welcome.

Also, please note that none of my Peeps received the snowy version. They're not THAT special. I had to laugh when one person who did receive that card asked when our family had visited the slopes in Colorado. If by "the slopes of Colorado" you mean "the giant hill at Thompson Station Park", then last February.

Christmas Programs
Oh we had plenty of these to go around. There was the Preschool program at school which I was in charge of. Then there was Ocho's program at school where she was not only lending her vocal talents but her newly acquired recorder talents as well. (I'll admit every year I stifle my giggles at the atrocious sound of a mass of kids playing these squeaky plastic pipes. But it's different when it's your kid. This year I giggled out loud).
Then there was The Ocho's church program (which was awesome by the way. TSC knows a thing or two about children's choir performances). Finally, when Ocho was done with all of her Christmas merriment it was my turn.

Our adult choir starts working on Christmas music in early September. By the time December rolls around I'm soooooo over Christmas music. But because our choir is all kinds of awesome, I always look forward to our Sunday night performance. This year we worked really, really hard and could tell God was all over it. We had 3 full rehearsals the week leading up to it and then a sound check rehearsal on that Sunday afternoon. That's when the snow started to fall. And then it continued to fall. And then our concert got postponed for a week. If you know anything about me at all you know I like to check things off my to-do list. And I was so very ready to check this one off. But it would have to wait one more week. And it tortured me.

But it eventually happened and it was just as wonderful as God promised it would be.

Christmas Parties
Oh we are a partying bunch here at the Wood house. We had a Sunday School class party, Lydia's school class party, my elementary faculty party, the joint faculty party, the Wood family get-together party and our adult Sunday School class party (which Handiman attended without me because I was at a choir rehearsal). And would you believe that there was actually another party that I had to skip? Seriously. Too. Many. Parties.

And just for kicks, Lydia had a piano recital right smack in the middle of Partymania Week. Because what I needed was one more thing to do.
At the end of the week it was time to host our annual Peep Party. This year we all wore "festive" holiday sweaters, played Minute to Win It games and had our usual rowdy Dirty Santa game. No matter how much life December has sucked out of me, by the time this party rolls around these people always put the Merry back in my Christmas. I do love them so. And that is why they get their own Christmas Card.
Christmas Traditions
The week before Christmas everything usually settles down and we can get down to the family stuff. We took our usual tour of the Opryland Hotel to see the spectacle but this year it was especially significant since the entire hotel was flooded back in May. The renovations were amazing.
We took my Mom along this year and added a little extra something by finally attending The Rockettes Show at the Grand Ole Opry. I've always heard it's amazing. I heard right. The living nativity at the end is absolutely the most Christ glorifying thing I saw all season long.

This year we opted out of our usual Nashville neighborhood tours and decided to stick close to home. And we're so glad we did. We all fueled up on the essentials before taking the grand tour of The Hill.
It turns out our little town can bring it when it comes to holiday decorating. And in all my years of touring the big city, nobody has ever had a Festivus Pole. (Thanks for the tip Dodd family!)
On Christmas Eve we baked and decorated our cookies. As The Ocho gets older, she's getting a little more competitive with her father. At one point she was almost in tears because his looked better than hers. I told her "THERE'S NO CRYING IN COOKIE DECORATING SO GET OVER IT!" Then I made her this.
Christmas Presents
First stop on The Ocho's tour of Excessive Present Accumulation is Grandma's house. Here she picked up some earrings (Oh man! I never blogged about her getting her ears pierced did I? Gee Wiz I'm a loser. I'll come back to it. I promise!), some cool boots, an American Girl outfit for Kit, a Taylor Swift CD, and various other things. She didn't really care though. She just wanted to play with Alex.
On Christmas morning Santa had left a few things including the highly anticipated Ruthie!
She got a few things from Mommy & Daddy as well including this Wizard of Oz jewelry box.
I was way more excited about this that she was. But only because I'd tried to order it before her birthday 2 different times and it kept getting back ordered. Then I ordered it for Christmas back in November and it didn't arrive until December 23rd. So yeah, I was happy to see it.

On Christmas afternoon, we headed to Grandmommy's house where there were even MORE presents including this super-cool Justice snuggie.
Christmas Complaints
It snowed on Christmas Day which may sound like an odd complaint. But I was disappointed since I had visions of sledding and snowmen and it barely dusted the ground. And then there was Handiman who started getting a cold on Christmas Eve and spent the next 4 days in bed missing all of our family free time. (Did you ladies hear me? I had a sick husband during Christmas? I know you're feelin' my pain). And then there was the elementary methods course work I had to finish along with the 6 session DVD on the Philosophy of Christian Education, the 5 books of required reading and 6 page paper I have to complete during my time off from school in order to renew my temporary teaching certificate. And did I mention that I received so much candy during the past 4 weeks that I almost HATE the sight of chocolate? Can you even imagine?

So, that was Christmas 2010 at our house. I am now ready for my long winter's nap.