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People I thought we would hear from this Christmas but haven’t:
(“You don’t write – you don’t call”)

1. The Hills – what’s goin ooooooon?
2. The Sanders
3. The Banks
4. The Cunninghams
5. Dooley – missed your beautiful cards
6. Hickmans 😦
7. the Moores
(Isn’t this just like elementary school where the teacher called you out by name in front of everyone? Maybe you were never called out in front of everyone for let’s say . . .talking. I was and this is just like it sorta.)
8. The Oteys- except for an email about Christmas Vacation and I won’t count that on principle.
9. The Saunders – I missed the picture of their HUGE family.
10. Vargos – as in the A. Vargos- what’s up with that???

Now there are other people we didn’t hear from that we don’t usually hear from and there are friends who have emailed and said, “I’ll get to it soon” and have a newer baby and I understand that. To the ten above – we hope all is well and miss you. No pressure 🙂

My parents arrived on Saturday and it was such fun. The kids were so excited and choruses of , “Memom and Pop are here!” rang through the house. That night there was a wind storm like you would not believe and a limb fell out of a tree and hit our car. Yes, dented the top and broke the side mirror off the driver side. (As the group Chicago would say, “You don’t know whatcha got until it’s gone – and I found out a little too laaaaate.” That side mirror is invaluable!) So, Merry Christmas to us!

Being overwhelmingly good merry makers, we did not let this catastrophe kill our Christmas spirit – no! We went to church on Sunday and sang the carols full force and even drove through Santa’s Magical Kingdom that night; a monster big light display at a Jellystone National Park. The night was topped off with eggnog and we headed into Christmas Eve in good spirits.

A pancake breakfast at Uncle Bill’s (not a relative – a restaurant) kicked off the day and last minute shopping ensued. Some cooking that afternoon and toy constructing and we were in bed again.

For Christmas, my KB gave me a real gift. She slept through the night! YES – 10:30PM – 7:00AM that little angel. That started our day off well and from that point on the day was nothing like any other Christmas we’ve ever had. We started the day off with Little yelling, “Happy Birthday, Jesus!” from her bed as we came down the stairs. Pop made omelets right off- that’s right – BEFORE opening a single gift! After eating we all headed up to our room, piled on the bed and read the story of Christmas and sang Away in a Manger and Joy to the World. Hearing Little and Bubba sing was wonderful. Finally we headed down to the tree. First gift opened around 9:00AM – – last gift opened 5:00PM!! Can you believe it!!!

This picture sums up our day – -Little loved opening the packages and Bubba played with a few of his presents all day long. Yep, he let Little open them and he would play with them. Little did stop unwrapping long enough to play with the purse Aunt Anna gave her and the pretend makeup inside.

Bubba got a basketball goal twice his size but he has figured out that if he stands on the couch on the back porch he can ring the goal. Or, he can just get Pop to assist.