TrulyGrace

Christmas Eve and Christmas 2014

Went to Joyce and Greg's early on the 24th of December.   Joyce met up with me, had lunch with her family, Mom, Dad, and Phyllis at  her family's home. 

We arrived by 4.30PM for the 5.00PM Mass, as there were eight of us wanting to sit in one pew at Mass...the children's Mass. The Mass was greatly enlivened by the violin, flute, and piano choir; children lectors; liturgical dancing by the young ones; and the Christmas pageant replete with shepherds and sheep and a bevy of angels.  The priest spoke about a man and geese and related an interesting story for the homily.

I treated all of us to burgers and fries for dinner; we had an interesting exchange with the window tellers at the burger place!

I turned in early, given poor seating on my travels earlier in the day.
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Awoke at ~ 5.30 and showered early Christmas morning.  Read a gratitude book for a while this morning.  Benny awoke everyone by 7.10 for the traditional opening-of-gifts.  Our family tradition was upheld by all permutations of gift- giving (single giver/receiver, at least) to each other.  Greg's family's tradition was upheld by opening gifts one-at-a-time.  We took a break and ate a big breakfast of bagels, cream cheeses, and fresh lox from Bernie's family, c/o Zabar's in New York---with additions from our gifts (such as the Stroopwaffels from Santa, c/o www.Daelmansbanket.nl). 

We've napped and read, and will be getting ready to visit Beth Ann's for Christmas later.  Kelly and Kyle are communicating by phone and Facetime concurrently with the awake people in the household....
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posted by Grace @ 12/25/2014 06:38:00 PM