Christmas 2011

Mandy and the Crenshaws came for Christmas. They came up in Mandy's new Mazda 3 - Guy Smiley. They arrived Fri. evening. Celeste was up early Sat. morning helping me make goodies.

We commemorated Hanukka with latkes for breakfast. All of us plus Diane walked to the Collector's Museum to see all the interesting collections.

Then we worked hard to get ready for the Christmas Eve celebration. Celeste added riders to the carousel.

Dave & Diane joined us for a dinner of cheesy broccoli soup in bread bowls.

Celeste passed out pencils for the game of trivia.

We had a special program that involved watching clips from the new videos of Christ's life. There was scripture reading, Scott singing, us singing, Mandy playing viola and violin, Bethany playing piano and violin. Celeste used the stuffed nativity figures to act out the story.

Then we opened presents from Dave & Diane. Then we played Wacky Six.

On Sun. morning, Celeste was very concerned that Santa Claus might still be there and didn't want to come into the living room. She finally found the contents of her stocking.

We all got some creative and wonderful gifts including Mandy making DVD's of all the old family VHS tapes and an exercise video for me starring the grandchildren ("Come on Grammy Goose, you can do it!") Celeste got the Finding Nemo movie and stuffed characters, a doll house and a castle tent.

Then we got ready for church. Celeste watched Finding Nemo when she was ready. Church was very nice with lovely musical numbers.

We invited Dave & Diane for Christmas dinner which included a Cornish game hen cooked with orange marmalade for each person. We of course had our English Crackers.

Afterwards Diane showed us her Barbie doll and clothes my mother had made (since we saw Barbies at the Collector Museum.) We played Catch Phrase.
In the evening we went to the 2 homes that have the music broadcasted on a radio frequency and a synchronized light show.
It was a delightful Christmas!