Our First Christmas

Of all the holidays, I believe Christmas is my absolute favorite. Thanksgiving comes second, because both holidays involve my family. But Christmas seems more magical due to the lights and the trees and the traditions and the added bonus from this year...snow! Yes, this year we had a white Christmas. It was so great! It stopped soon enough for all of my family to make it, but it was heavy enough that it stuck around for a while. From previous posts we know that my dog Lady loves the snow. Well, two feet of it is even more fun, in her opinion. Sprite, not so much. She's so small that when she tried to run out in it the first time, she sank in and got stuck! Lady, on the other hand, is a regular snow dog.

Emily, my niece, was a little unsure of the snow at first. It was a little hard for her to walk in it...her feet would slide under the top crust that had frozen overnight and they would get stuck. It took her a little while, but she warmed up to it.

Christmas itself was great. We had gone to see Mike's family the week before, as they were traveling down to southwestern Virginia to see Mammaw and Pappaw. On Christmas Eve, my second oldest brother Steve and his fiancee were leaving to go up to see her family in Pittsburg, so we decided to have a brunch. Chris and Danielle did the most of the cooking, it seemed, because they had chocolate chip scones, blueberry scones, and a sausage and egg cassarole that was to die for! Steve made bacon and Katie had brought her wonderful sweet potato muffins. Unfortunately, dad couldn't make it due to him still having a work day.

Emily was so funny for Christmas. She made out like a little bandit this year...it must be great having so many aunts and uncles! She got a lot of books...Dr. Seuss, mainly. She now has her own little library! Then, as though she didn't have enough presents, she decided to take her mommy and daddy's presents and make them her own.

Of all the presents I received, there were two that stood out the most. One, I got a KitchenAid stand mixer from Mike. You may laugh, but no words could express the excitement I felt when I tore open the paper. I've wanted one of these for a while. I'm thankful that I had a hand mixer prior to this, but it's a little difficult to make four or five batches of cookies with a small, low-powered hand mixer. The other gift was from mom, though I guess technically you could say it was from Grandma Stauffer. My grandmother passed away a couple years ago, but she's still with us. My gift from her was a small porcelain bell ornament, daintily decorated with a small print and a date...1986. This was the year I was born. The bell was one of hers. She used to have a large collection of all sorts of hand bells...glass ones, porcelain and China ones, ones with little figures sitting on top of them, ones with beautiful paintings on them. When I asked her why she had so many, she had told me they were her symbol, her trademark.

All in all, this Christmas was a wonderful one, even more so than some of the most recent years. Mike's and my first Christmas.