Thursday, January 22, 2009

Christmas Revisited

It's been a month since Christmas. It seems like such a longer time has passed than that since we all tore open presents and exclaimed our approval for the item contained inside. But I looked at the pictures again tonight and realized that we should probably document our time at Christmas here in the catacombs of the Internet so future generations of Purdys can someday look upon them and say "Grandpa Purdy blogged?? We learned about blogging at school. My teacher said that before memory recorders it was the way people wrote about their life in old fashioned days." Anyway...
The Tuesday before Christmas my sister, LaVonna, her husband, Michael, and their three boys, Brayden, Jonathan and Zachary arrived from Bakersfield, California. They had been driving all night, through the winter storm that was pounding Utah, just to spend Christmas with us. We enjoyed having them here. The boys, whom I affectionately nicknamed "The Stormin' Stropes" wasted no time settling in.

On Wednesday we picked up Chandler and Faith from their mom's house. The addition of the two kids gave us a grand total of 9 1/2 people living in a 900 square-foot apartment. Needless to say it was a bit cramped. Of course the Christmas tree in the living room was overflowing with gifts from the 26 pairs (actually 5) of grandparents, combined, that our kids have. That night we attended the Christmas Eve service at our church, then came home to participate in a family tradition. We all gathered in the living room and sang "Silent Night" while I played the guitar. Then we all thanks Jesus for giving us a very special gift and took turns telling Jesus what our gift to Him would be in 2009. Then we took our egg-nog-filled glasses and toasted. After the mushy stuff the kids got to open one gift each from under the tree. We hurried the kids into bed, telling them that Santa wouldn't come until they were in bed and sleeping. (Yes. We mentioned both Jesus AND Santa at Christmas.) The kids quickly wrote their own personal notes to Santa (always VERY cute) and crawled under their covers. After the kids were in bed and quiet, we participated in yet another tradition: fooling the kids into thinking that Santa was at the house. Carrying the torch that my father once bore, I knocked on the front door. Then I opened it. Alicia said "Hi Santa!! You're just in time!" Of course I carried on with the obligatory "Ho-ho-ho's" and such. I said "Are the kids in bed?" Then, Alicia said "Yep. They're in bed sleeping." So in a quieter voice, but still loud enough for them to hear me I carried on, asking if they were good kids this year. I finished up by pretending to put presents under the tree for them. Alicia reminded me that they had cookies and milk for me to eat. I laughed and pretended to enjoy the snack. Then with the same fanfare as I entered with I left with a hearty laugh and a "Merrrrrry Christmas!" I had Mike sign the card "Thanks for the cookies! - Santa." Alicia said that the whole time you could hear the kids in their rooms whispering loudly, saying "Guys! Santa is here!! He's actually here!!" The adults finished off the night with a round of Trivial Pursuit - 80's Edition and went to bed.

Christmas day was wonderful. We all gathered in the living room again and sang "Joy to the World!" Then I read the Christmas story from the Bible and we prayed, thanking Jesus for coming to earth to save our sins. I thanked God for allowing my family to be with me, and, I'll admit, even got choked up. After our prayer I donned the Santa hat and started handing out presents. It will never cease to amaze me that so many presents can disappear so quickly. All three kids made out like bandits. Brayden and Jonathan got some presents, too, but soon realized that they weren't getting as many as the other three. Alicia and I felt bad and tried to explain that the gifts were from their other grandparents, but when you're 5 and 3 the world is unfair, no matter what adults try to tell you.

After presents we had some breakfast and spent the rest of the day picking up and enjoying our gifts. Later that day we had a big Christmas lunch/dinner complete with ham, sweet potatoes and green bean casserole. After it got dark, we went downtown to enjoy Ogden's annual Christmas Village display - a gathering of oversized dollhouses with big picture windows in order to look inside. Organizations and companies all over Ogden sponsor a house and decorate it inside with dolls and stuffed animals that mechanically move their arms and heads. It's not Main Street at Disneyland but it's fun. The whole park area is lit to the rim with Christmas lights. It was very cold out so we were all bundled up. We headed home and went to bed.

Friday we decided to go sledding across the street at the golf course. The whole thing is built in a valley, so there are some great slopes for tubing and sledding. First we had to make a run to Big 5 to buy sleds. We brought some water bottles and snacks, but best of all we brought a thermos of hot chocolate. The kids took off to try out some bumpier hills, while the adults and littlest kids stayed back and enjoyed the longer, smoother (faster) slopes. Not very long into the fun, Eldon and Faith called out to me that Chandler had hurt himself. I ran over to him and found him crying. He said he'd gone off a bump and landed hard, hurting his back so badly that he couldn't get up. I knew that he'd jammed his lower back, like so many of us have in life, so I carried him back up the steep hill and had him lay down. His sledding day was over. The rest of us sledded for about 30 minutes more and then decided to head home. That night we gave Chandler a treatment of ice packs and heat packs. He said his back was feeling much better when he went to bed.

Saturday we loafed around. Sunday we went to church. The Stropes left us not long after.

It was a fantastic time. Here are the pictures. We were blessed to have our family with us during Christmas. Next year we'll be in a home with enough space for guests. (crossing fingers)

2 comments:

Homer Purdy, Jr. said...

Too bad Mom and I could not be there; sounds like you had plenty of room and really needed someone to liven up the season!

Carolynn said...

Glad to see you have return to the land-o-blogging! I've missed the Purdy Chronicles! Can't wait to see the fam next week!