Weekending- Merry Christmas(es) & More

Recapping Christmas celebrations and the weekend- linking up with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday:

We had three Christmas celebrations- the 24th, 25th and 26th and we hosted two out of the three. Lots of work but loads of fun and festive cheer.

On Christmas Eve, I got up and prepped quite a bit for the Christmas day meal we were serving. And by prepped I mean I roasted the turkey (baking the turkey the day before is a game changer! It takes a lot of time to get all the meat off the bone and time is something we don´t have an excess amount of on Christmas day), got a few sides and an appetizer prepped and in the fridge. I also found time for a run on the treadmill, a short family devotional and pictures all before heading to church and then to Donnie´s mom house for a meal and get together.

I got all the gifts put in bags or wrapped by the afternoon on the 24th. Not gonna lie, I am proud of myself as I wrapped/assembled all of the gifts here. Many years, I voluntell Donnie to wrap some presents but not this year. He´s so busy at work yet still managed to buy most of the present here himself (the kids sent him and not me (lol) their lists with links) not to mention his work is what allows us to buy what we do so I let him off the hook present wrapping wise.  In addition to buying gifts for the kids, we purchased gifts for my nieces and we exchanged gifts with eleven adults so buying/wrapping/keeping track of gifts can be a challenge, albeit a mostly fun one!!

Christmas Eve before church

Buc-ee´s first Christmas with us!!

At Donnie´s mom´s house- our first family picture of the year 2025- better late than never, right??

She had food catered from a local restaurant

And my SIL brought loads of goodies from a Cincinnati bakery

The kids with grandma

Christmas morning- I got up and got the ham in the oven. When Alyssa got up, she started the cinnamon rolls. We had to have everyone up at a pretty early hour to get presents opened and then the house ready for guests to come over at 1:00.

We had fewer people over than usual so everyone sat in the kitchen or near it. Most years we have people sitting at the kitchen table and dining room table. All of the older adults sat at the kitchen table that I elongated and our kids sat at the table behind the sofa table.  

The girls were the best helpers! It´s easy to get nostalgic over kids´ childhoods and the joy of Christmas morning with young kids. But goodness, there´s something to be said for young adult daughters who make the mashed potatoes and sweet potato casserole completely on their own while I was getting other things done for our Christmas meal.

Donnie´s sister brought this delicious shrimp tray

Christmas evening the Stranger Things fans watched the two episodes that dropped on Christmas. I found an Anthony Horowitz book available on my library´s digital service and began to read that- what a treat! It was a good way to end a busy few days.

The next day, we were having my family over. Thankfully, we had many leftovers and the weather was nice. We had decided to grill steaks and I just had to make one side dish- for the rest of the meal we had leftovers. 

Loved seeing MG and all the family!

Several pics like this- she was on the move!

That takes us to Saturday. We had no one coming over to the house and nowhere that we had to be. No dishes to prepare, no house to clean up, and we had a refrigerator (still!) full of leftovers. What did I do to deserve this? Well, actually, I had done quite a bit in the preceding days so I sort of had done something to deserve it :).

I didn´t leave the house except to run to the mall quickly with Jacob to get him a couple of items that he wanted. 

Jacob got a couple of pairs of jeans which was good but the mall, overall, was depressing. Even more stores have closed since I was last in it. Bless JC Penney´s and Macy´s hearts- those two anchor stores are still there while two others have shuttered their doors. And it looks like the mall time honored tradition of pictures with Santa occurred which is good? I guess? 

Shortly after we got home from the mall, Abby left for an out of state trip. She won´t return until New Years Day. 

My dinner Saturday evening- it was the only meal of the day that I had! With all the eating I´d done the past few days, I decided to not eat until I was hungry. That wasn´t until dinnertime!

Sunday morning, I got up, ran and then got ready for church. Straight from church we went to Marion´s Pizza with some family members. Pizza was good and a nice break from steak/turkey/ham :).

We relaxed the rest of the day. The guys watched football. Alyssa and I played our favorite game and just relaxed- I worked on this post and then we took a walk into town. It was 68 degrees! And with only a high on Monday of 25, we knew we wanted to take advantage of  it. We walked for right around an hour. We kept remarking about how good it felt!

The rest of the day and evening was low key and relaxing!