The 4 Days of Christmas

I don't know where the 12 Days of Christmas song came from, although google says the 12 days are those between Dec. 25 and Jan. 6 (epiphany). The song was written so long ago that it seems just plain silly to us today. I mean, really, why would my true love give me lords a-leaping or even a partridge in a pear tree. If I received those gifts, I wouldn't be too convinced that he really loved me! Well, be that as it may...our Christmas this year spanned several days.

It started out on Christmas Eve. I worked most of the day because the evening required my presence at the Candlelight services. I love our church and feel so loved by the dear people who make up our body. One of our traditions is for the deacons to honor the pastors and their families at the Christmas Eve service each year. Earlier in the month, they send out a letter to the church to let them know they can donate toward a Christmas gift for the pastors. So during the Christmas Eve service we are all called up on the platform. The pastors wives are presented with a beautiful bouquet and the pastors get a nice bonus check. On the one hand, I feel exposed standing up there in front of everyone. But on the other hand, I also feel loved. The people clap and even gave a standing ovation in the one service! We are truly blessed to be where we are.On Christmas Day itself, I spent the morning in the kitchen. Because all our children are married, they have their own families and in-laws. So we had originally decided to celebrate the Wallin Christmas the day after on Sunday, Dec. 26th. I made a cherry pie, an apple buttermilk custard pie, a batch of rolls and sausage stuffing.I finished all the baking and cooking by 12:00 noon, so Andy and I decided to go see a movie. I still had a little left on a gift card that someone had given me and Voyage of the Dawn Treader was still playing. So off we went. It was pretty well done and we enjoyed it. There were a few parts that weren't exactly like the book, but I don't think there's any movie ever made that doesn't have some differences from the book.

The third day of Christmas: Sunday, Dec. 26th, was the day we had planned to get together with our family. But there was a big snow storm predicted so after several phone calls, we decided to postpone it till Monday. So Sunday turned out to be pretty low-key and restful, for me at least. For Andy, not as restful, because he went out several times to start shoveling.

On Monday morning, Andy spent about 2 hours digging us out. The snow was really deep, we must have gotten about 11 inches. And in some spots it was even deeper because the wind was pretty fierce. In fact, in some of the pictures I took, it looks like it's snowing, but it's just the wind whipping the snow across the yard or off the roof.It even blew snow up onto the porch.
I don't think anyone's going to be playing on the swing set today.
And now too much solar power either.
We left our house around 12:00 to drive up to Amy's house. She had 1 litter of puppies and another one due any day, so didn't want to leave them for a whole day to come down to our house. It was a lot of fun to be together. I love our family.

There was lots of good food.
Everybody got to hold the baby. What a good baby she is, too.
The little kids' table:
Big kids:
Presents:
All the Lindsay kids got pillow pets.
Chase got a Superman cape. I think Ricky was jealous.
Joanna got a play kitchen.
She was playing with it as the guys were putting it together.
I think she likes it!
The kids were happy to have puppies to hold.
All too soon the party was over. A very merry Christmas.