To Christmas and Beyond

Well, Christmas was a little different this year to say the least. We've had so much snow that the majority of our holiday festivities were either canceled or postponed. We did make to our homeschool Christmas party, that happened right before all the snow hit and hit and hit again. I think we had at least a foot of snow, but I'm pretty sure it was more like 16 or 17 inches (although it partially melted one day, before we got a ton more). Our street was full of icky snow ruts and frozen melted snow. No fun!
Thankfully, we were able to get out this week and even managed to finish Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. I haven't shopped on Christmas Eve for years (in fact, I'm not sure I EVER shopped on Christmas Eve before) and I don't intend to repeat that next year! I've already started my Christmas shopping for next year. I got some good deals on some nice things, so I have a head start!
We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at home, just the three of us. We spent Christmas afternoon and evening at Colin's parents' home. Ian was so antsy to open presents! He just couldn't wait. We had a nice Christmas and got a really cool present for the whole family. Colin and Ian were really trying it out today!
They played Wii bowling and Ian even managed to get a strike or two!
Tonight was Ian's Christmas program at our church (another thing that was rescheduled due to snow). The kids were performing the Christmas musical Christmas Comes to Lone Star Gulch. It was really cute. The kids dressed up like cowboys and if they didn't have a main part, they were a towns person. Everyone was on stage for the whole performance (except for the tiny kids, 2's and 3's). The two and three year olds came in at the very end, dressed for the nativity scene. I'm not sure who thought it would be a good idea to dress the little ones as Joseph and Mary and a lamb and an angel, but that's what they did. It led to quite a bit of laughter. The lamb was all over the place. He stared in amazement at the audience, tackled his older sister twice, ran off stage and later returned. Mary spotted her mother in the front directing the singing, so she hollered from on stage " Hi Mama! Hi Mama! Mama! Mama!" while waving and holding baby Jesus rather peculiarly and then proceeded to run off stage to make sure her mama knew it was her and managing to lose her head covering. When she returned to the stage she tripped on her robe climbing the stairs! Ian was certain that the little kids had ruined the play, but we told him they didn't, they just provided the comic relief! And yes, I did manage to get most of the chaos on video. I'll try to post it later. What a hoot!
Hope your Christmas was filled with love and all the people you care about and that you remembered why we celebrate Christmas...the birth of our Savior, Jesus.
Merry Christmas!