Wednesday, January 9, 2008

A Posting Miracle!!!

Sorry, I have been a bit of a Blogging "Scrooge" these past few months...I can make many excuses but I am sure you know them all. I will promise to squeeze some time out of every week to post something even if its a few words to let you all know we are alive and doing fine. With the apology made... how about a little Holiday Update!
This year we branched out on our own...We decided to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at home this year or should I say honestly I wanted to stay home this year... As many of you know we "The younger Arnold's" have invaded The Arnold home every year for Christmas Days. This was a tradition that Jim grew up with; spending Christmas Eve, Day and the Next Day at his grandparent's home. He so loved this tradition and the memories he had so much that he wanted to share this experience with his children. Judy and Sherman have been wonderful to indulge Jim these last 7 years with the fond memories of this tradition with our children. After many discussions over the 2007 I finally convinced Jim that even though I loved this traditional event it was time (and my desire) to spend Christmas at our new house in Tacoma and that we could still spend Arnold Family time together but just a little later in the day. Once this decision was agreed to we had one more task...how to explain to the rest of the family that we wanted to spend the eve and morning at home. The news was well received with the added bonus that we would also like to host Christmas Day Dinner at our house. The holidays were wonderful...we had traditional Clam Chowder for Christmas Eve Dinner at The Arnold's, went to the 7:00pm Service at church and then headed back home. We made sure to leave milk and cookies just in case "Santa" dropped in and tucked the kids into bed. Jim and I set the dinner table for Christmas dinner, checked our Christmas dinner list twice, made Monkey Bread together, listened for sleigh bells and then dozed to sleep. We awoke around 7:00am to the sounds of Ashley coming down the stairs and then running back up to tell Deryck "Santa" had in fact been there during the night. We watched the kids play with the "Santa" gifts while making coffee and cooking the Monkey Bread. "Santa" brought Deryck a small digital camcorder and Ashley "Buttercup" the pony. After we were all fed and the Ham was started we relaxed together and shared our family gifts. We had a very relaxed morning hanging out in our PJ's and enjoyed watching the kids play with their gifts while Jim and I made the last few preparations before everyone else arrived. To our complete surprise we received an extra gift "Christmas Snow in Seattle" Deryck is sure that God brought me a little Snow from home to make the day just right for me. It was a perfect Christmas Morning. Sherm, Judy, Sarah, Andy and Theo arrived around 1:00pm. We enjoyed a 2nd round of gift exchanges with the Arnold's and was able to visit with the Lewis's. Before we knew it the Lewis's had to leave for more Christmas'ing with the Lewis side of the family in Olalla. We were so delighted when the Meserve Clan and the Kramer' s agreed to share Christmas Dinner with us. The Meserve's are like extended family to us and I was so happy to share in this special day with them. The Kramer's are great family friends to all the Arnold's and it made the day even better to share it with so many people we love. I felt so blessed to have our home full of loved ones on this very Special Day. We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas feast, and then spent the evening playing games and relaxing. Later in the evening, Don's parents from California arrived and after a brief visit all of the Meserve's headed home. After everyone had departed for their journey home and the kids were tucked soundly asleep into their beds, Jim and I snuggled together and watched the Christmas tree glisten. A Perfect Christmas!

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