Christmas

Christmas was bittersweet for us this year. It was the first time in 10 years that we (as a married couple; first time in Jeremy's life) have not been in Hattiesburg for Christmas. There were the selfish reasons: we didn't want to travel 16 hours round trip only to be there for two days, and we didn't want to have to lug all the presents in an already cramped car, nor did we want to have to wait for Shelby and Joey to get their Santa Claus presents until we got home like we had to do last year. There were the other reasons as well: for one thing, I CAN'T take off of work this time of year (thus the reason we'd only have been able to be there for two days), and we didn't want to add to the chaos while Mamaw is not feeling well. So, it just made better sense for us to stay home and enjoy Christmas with just our little family, though we did miss visiting with everyone. (Side note- next year, if anyone wants to do the traveling, our door is always open.) Shelby and Joey fell asleep pretty quickly Friday night, and we didn't have too much wrapping to do, so we had everything out pretty quickly. Shelby woke up Saturday morning at about 7:30 and the first thing she did was look out her window to look for snow. (She asked for two things, a ballet bar and snow. At least Santa delivered on the first one.)

Even though I thought this was so lame growing up, I want to keep the tradition of lining up at the top of the stairs and singing Christmas carols on the way down. Here is video of Shelby (and Joey) when they first came down and saw their presents.


I love that she just threw her cup down so she could grab her pillow pet who, by the way, she has named "Halfy". Don't know where she got that one!

The missionaries came over for lunch and we had honey glazed ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, cornbread dressing, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, rolls, and pumpkin pie. So good. The rest of the day we just played. It was very nice and relaxing. I love that we have gotten to spend so much time with Jeremy this week- not sure what we are going to do when he has to go back to work tomorrow! At least it's a short week!