Christmas Week

Sunday the first family member arrived--SIL Diane. The gift pile grew daily.

 Monday the three of us joined family and friends of the MNM (Monday Night Meal) crowd for the annual Christmas Eve Brunch.

Stephan and Karen's real tree

No need for MNM that day, enough food, fellowship and fun to last a long while: montecristos, scotch eggs, biscuits and gravy, chai, egg nog; great conversation, plenty of jokes, and a rousing game of nertz.

Serious competition

 Christmas Day I made the traditional breakfast fare--sausage egg casserole (from the recipe in Sam's second-grade handwriting) and baked oatmeal.

Only Leah's family came that day with plans to stay overnight.
Our sons prefer to have their own family Christmas, although for Stephan it is usually, if not always, combined with an ice sculpture delivery or two. We exchanged some gifts, but saved most for the all-family celebration the next day.
However, due to very strong warnings of blizzard conditions for all day Wednesday, Stephan and Karen accepted our invitation to come that night. We made a bed for them in the loft.

The next morning they had fun trying out their newly acquired snow shoes, with their dogs, Gryffon and Gracie, tagging along.

Later in the day everyone enjoyed the fun in the snow, even if from the window like me.

Before the gift exchange, and even before reading the story of the birth of Christ in Luke 2, we had a very hurried photo session to include all the grandkids in a Nativity scene. Just had to take advantage of a new baby in the family. Our little shepherd boy was not at all happy about the idea and kept taking off his costume, but we managed to capture a sweet picture of all seven (including our new grandson-in-law) which I will not reveal now (a possible 2013 Christmas card?). Here are a couple of teasers.

Joseph-Matt, Mary-Kayla, and the Babe-Jude

Shepherd boy-Zion

Men and boys were very happy with their tools/toys. All of them played with the teenagers' remote-controlled helicopters. I was the target victim of one fly-around.

Even Brutus the cat enjoyed his toy all day.

Each family gave and received handcrafted items among other gifts. How do you like this etched Pyrex dish from Stephan and Karen?

And the frilly scarf for Karen?

Amidst all the fun and frenzy, here's a sweet Meemaw moment.

 Snow and ice characterized the rest of the week. Thursday, Mike slid into the mail box and had to pull the car out with the ATV and later that day lost control and snaked his way to a steady course, grateful that no one was coming in the opposite direction.

I was rather scared as we drove into a snow storm Friday on our way back from seeing Les Misérables. I kept my head down, prayed, and chatted with SIL Kim in Argentina as we played Words With Friends. That was her advice for getting through those nervous-passenger moments.

Michael has plowed the driveway numerous times.

And I am slowly taking down and putting away Christmas decorations.