Christmas Eve was a wonderful day. We spent the day at home until the late afternoon. Then we went to the Christmas Eve Mass with my parents and sister. We actually got there early enough this year to have seats in the pews instead of the folding chairs in the back. It was a very nice Mass with great music. Eva sang her heart out during “Go Tell It On the Mountain.” She belted it out loud enough to have some folks turn right around to notice. After Mass we took the annual photo of the kids with the manger scene.
We then had a nice family dinner with my parents, sister and brother-in-law. Allison made her Christmas Chicken stew. We enjoyed good conversation and fun. Erik gave me a special tin of Garrett popcorn. He said it was supposed to be in a pink bucket but instead it was a Chicago Bulls one. While the pink one would have been funnier, it didn’t matter since the popcorn is what I’m excited about. It was nice of him to remember that I liked it so much.
After dinner we showed everyone our crazy huge MAX TRAXXX race track that we made. Everyone was impressed and gave it a try. I got some hair and cat fur stuck in one of the new cars and learned how to completely disassemble it and reassemble it. Then it was time to put the kids to bed for Christmas.
For the past couple of years I have been fortunate to be home to get to go on the annual Christmas shopping trip with Uncle Jim, Allison and the kids. Uncle Jim comes into town and does his Christmas and birthday shopping for his Great-Nieces and Nephews. For a few years I have not been able to go because the trip would be on a weekend. Luckily, this year and last it was during the week and I could go along.
We went to Kohls over at Mansfield Crossing. This is a good place because it has so many things in one location. They also do some decent toy packages. The prices are marked up but then they are on crazy sales so it ends up working out okay. The kids picked out a birthday and a Christmas gift each and then one that they could share. This year the sharing gift was some Rose Art Color Blanks of animals with designs, sort of like the Mexican spirit animals from Coco. They both loved Coco so this was a natural fit for them. They even agreed on how best to divy up the animals in the package.
After our shopping we took Jim over to Mac and Walt’s for dinner. He took us out but we picked the place. It was excellent as always. We do love going there and even introduced Jim to fried pickles, a favorite of ours.
