Christmas 2009

I have yet to download my pictures. Not sure what my little monkey did with my cord. So you will have to do with a narration.

Christmas Eve Savannah was all in a tizzy. She kept running around the house saying, 'We have so much to do. Hang the stockings, make Santa's cookies and milk.' She was very adamant that we 'make' the milk for Santa. So she helped Daddy hang the stockings. I was making acini-de-peppi for Christmas dinner and Muddy Buddys so I was not worrying about the cookies. I remembered we had some Keebler fudge stripped cookies upstairs and she was happy with that.

Once it started to get dark we decided to take a stroll through the neighborhood with the kids and dogs to look at lights. (we are dog sitting through the holidays. Needless to say the other dog is not used to a real tree and I think it thought it was great that we brought a real toilet(tree) in the house). Savannah was so nice to teach her sister the word 'awesome' although Charlie pronounced it a little different. So every house was 'wow' and 'hawsome'!! according to Charlotte. Charlotte loved the snowmen and penguins in peoples yards. Savannah liked the houses that were playing music. It helped to get us a little more into the Christmas spirit.

Christmas morning comes and I get a text from a childhood friend at 7:30a as my wake up call. My kids are still a snoozin. Charlie is the first one awake at 8:15. We recently took her crib down and so she is good at escaping. I bought the little childproof knobby things to keep kids out of things which I put on the inside of her door. The little stinker is smart and can take it off. Some days she is lazy and just yells 'DOOR' until we let her out. Christmas morning she decided to open it herself, although she did not come out of her room. Instead she decided to turn on her cd player full blast with the Chipmunks Christmas blaring. She was sitting on her bed singing along to Jingle Bells. In her version there is a Hey! after every line of song. This eventually woke up Savannah. We brought the scriptures into Charlies room to read Luke 2 and drink our grape juice.

**Grape juice is a Wright tradition from Chads grandmother. During the depression it was a treat to have grape juice so they only got it Christmas morning. The tradition has continued but I have evolved to white grape since I can't stand the purple stuff.**

We let the girls finally come down and they ran to their stuff. Savannah got a LeapFrog Tag system, a boy barbie, an alarm clock, a lite brite and some little tinker fairy Barbie things. Charlotte got the dora castle (totally recycled from 3 years ago with Savannah), a rocking chair, a magna doodle and the little fairy thingys. When Savannah asked to see Charlotte's magna doodle Charlotte layed down on it and yelled, 'MINE'. It was pretty funny. Chad let the girls play with their Santa stuff for like an hour so I went back to bed. Then we finally opened the gifts from everyone else. All in all we had a great Christmas.

We got a few unexpected gifts from unexpected people to which we are truly grateful for. These small gifts really helped to understand the true giving of Christmas. To whomever you are with the cards sent to and from us, we thank you. It helped out more than you will ever know. We are sad we were not in the black to send out cards to everyone this year. Maybe next year or a happy July. We wish you all the best and hope you will have a Joyous New Year.