Christmas

I will honestly say, I thought this Christmas was going to end up all botched up. Going into it, there were so many last minute changes of schedules, that I just kind of assumed it was all going to go bust.

Nan wasn't able to make it down because of some last minute bad weather that kept Andy and Jan from driving to PA... Kristin and the fam were understandably worried about leaving her MIL home alone for Christmas, since this was the first without her husband, so they were looking at coming up EARLIER now and having Christmas on Christmas Eve and leaving first thing on Christmas Day. This meant all the usual post - Christmas traditions we had with her and the kids were kaput. Which really bummed me out. About the only thing that didn't change was Eric's and my schedule for heading to Florida. Granted, some of those weren't finalized until two weeks before... but they didn't change at the last minute.

I'm quite happy to say, my worst fears were superfluous. While it happened earlier and was a much shorter visit with 'my' kids, it was one of great quality and full of good memories. The time shift ended up not being too big of a deal. In the past, we have celebrated Christmas after Christmas Day, if not the morning of, so I was really worried the 'magic' of Christmas would be lacking by opening gifts on Christmas Eve. That was probably my biggest worry. But since we waited until after it was dark, and went to an earlier mass, the magic was still there. Plus, Santa still didn't come until Christmas morning to fill the stockings... so we still had them on Christmas morning.

We still really missed Nan, though. She's been part of our Christmas for as long as I can remember. Last time she didn't want to fly down, I was the one that picked her up and drove her down to Jacksonville. Wasn't a bad trip, really... just wasn't in the cards this year, I guess. I still did her annual photobook and managed to get that sent to her before Christmas. She said she cried a little when she opened it. I also sent her a photo calendar... she have loved ones to look at all year, that way.

The best gift of all, though, had to be my t-shirt quilt my Mom made me from all of my old Auburn UPC t-shirts. Best. Gift. Ever! I had given her the shirts years ago, but with work and other projects, she never had time to work on it. And while I didn't forget about it, I quit bugging her about it. So it was a big surprise to open that for Christmas. And they even played a little trickery by telling me the gift was for Dad, at first. That's why I love my family...

So all in all, it was a great Christmas. Even though I was afraid it was going to be botched up. Hopefully, this will be the only one that gets all crazy close to being botched up... guess we'll see next year and in the years to come!