The Four Days of Christmas

I had a wonderful Christmas this year. :) There were four parties in four days, and each day had it's special highlights. Here's a few of them:

Wednesday, 24th, Christmas Eve:

• Family Day!
• We made our feast together that afternoon and opened our stocking presents at random times
• Took a break for the first Home Alone movie in our Home Alone marathon :)
• Set the mood for our dinner - setting the table with the fancy dish set used for only this date every year, candles flickered through the dimly lighted room, and manheim steamroller played in the background
• Dad reads the Christmas story right before we dig into the yummy food. This year our ham balls took on a little different form - Nice work, Mo. ;)
• Then the whole family cleans up together!
• Off to the presents! - I got a Precious Moment - the Christmas one that we get every year, but this year I thought it was especially beautiful :) I also got some "Greek lookin'" decorations with nice sayings on them - I especially liked the "Live well, Laugh often, and Love much" one, because in honor of the significance behind the title of this blog, I want to start collecting things that say Live, Laugh, and/or Love. My other favorite gift was this sweet leather covered Franklin Covey planner. It's the perfect thing for me - I've already started to fill it up!!
• After goofin' around with our presents for awhile, we watched Home Alone 2. Ah, great times, great times. :) It'd been quite awhile since I've seen these movies, and they're just seriously funny!!
• Then our parents went to bed, and... Mo, Chris, and I were nearly there ourselves when a random idea came along... but since it happened right about midnight, let's move on to Christmas day 2!

Thursday, 25th, Christmas Day

• During the first hour of the day, Mo, Chris, and I are bundled up and sledding in our backyard. We even snowboarded, made a snow angel, and actually ALL went down the hill on ONE sled a few times. My favorite was pausing for awhile laying on our backs lookin' up at the beautiful night sky. It was so clear, and the stars were so bright! :)
• Our little mid-night adventure didn't end there. We made a human Christmas card for Mom & Dad. With Morgan's new camera, we took pictures of ourselves forming human letters on our living room floor. Most of them took two of us to make the letter look the best, except for Chris' "T," hehe. Unfortunately the printer was acting up, so our plan was postponed to later today. More details to come... :)
• Oh yeah, there was some sleep
• Then this morning Mom, Dad, and I sang in the choir at church. It was a beautiful Christmas morning service. There was a neat poem read about the fruits of the Spirit. :) And after singing "Go Light Your World" with the choir, I had it in my head all day. I also got to talk with two of my old L-S classmates who I hadn't seen in awhile, that was great. :)
• Then it was off to the community building for the Rozendaal reunion. Soup and sloppy joes were the traditional items on the menu, plus super yummy salads and desserts!
• Then a bunch of us ladies played Skipbo. The game lasted quite awhile... and then Great Grandma pulled off a win with a sweet streak at the end! That was fun!
• I took a nap this afternoon, and I spent lots of time consolidating my random lists and condensing them into my new planner!
• Then it was time to fix up our "human letter spelling" gift. We got the printer to cooperate, and then spelled out "MERRY CHRISTMAS" and hung the letters with yarn across the stairway. Plus we put "We Love You" on the cute picture of us kids that we took right before our sledding adventure. :)
• But then Mom & Dad said they were going to bed... how to get them downstairs. Finally, a loud, frustrated whine and "Charlie peed down here again" exclamation got them curious enough to come looking. Our poor dog Charlie, sorry to stick the blame on you, hehe... but atleast we got them to notice our gift on Christmas!
• Then we cuddled up on the couch to watch Home Alone 3. :) NIGHT!

Friday, 26th, The Day after Christmas

• Today I talked with my parents about packing for Greece. It got a bit stressful...
• My stress was relieved when I bought some Skype credit to call up my friend Janet in Greece! :) It was soooo good to talk to her. :) I can't wait to see her in a few weeks! I asked her a lot of the big questions that were stressing my parents out. (yeah, just my parents mostly, since I'm not as anxious yet as I "should" be).
• I also made up a short letter to send out soon to all of my supporters with an update about my leaving date, my address in Greece, and my commissioning service details.
• This night was the party with mom's side of the family. Cousin Sam & her husband Jer brought cousin Emily with them to to spend Christmas with us. It was great to see them!
• First thing, I got to show everyone the T-shirt quilt grandma and I made! It's nearly done!
• We had our traditional lasagna, salad, and jello with marshmellows meal. :)
• Then we opened presents. A few stockings for all the grandkids were first. Grandma always wraps 5-10 stocking gifts for each kid with that many different kinds of wrapping paper. Then she'll hold up the type of paper we all have to find to open at random times. Ah, memories, hehe... It's starting to lose it's excitement as we get older, but traditions like these can't help but make you smile with the memories. :)
• We always exchange names, and this year Sammy had me. She got me some cute jewelry, but what was the coolest is that the necklace said Live, Laugh, Love!!!! And I hadn't told her about my new idea to collect things that say just that. :) Grandma also got me a nice shirt and some sweet guitar chord/scale charts. Now how am I gonna get my guitar to Greece....
• The rest of the night we played the games "In a Pickle" and "Hilarium." Good times.
• And of course we had our traditional pistachio dessert, mmmm. I almost forgot to mention the apple cider and amazing chex mix and other goodies that kept our taste buds occupied all night. :)
• Another great Christmas party! :) One to go...

Saturday, 27th, Birthdays!

• I slept in! But unlike on Home Alone, I didn't have a plane to catch, so it was all good. :)
• Today is my Aunt Sherry and my cousin Heather's birthday. :)
• This afternoon I spent time scheduling dates with all my friends for the week to come.
• I also finished reading the sweet Christmas story "Gideon's Gift" by Karen Kingsbury. It's part of her Christmas red glove series she started and finished a few years ago. I received these short stories as gifts over the consecutive Christmas' when they first were published... and now I thought it might be fun to re-read them this Christmas.
• I also had some fun conversations with my friends on the phone and facebook
• Finally, it was time to go to the last Christmas party - Dad's side of the family
• We had a yummy meal including chicken, ham, salad, beans, peach jello dessert, almond bars, and... probably something else good I'm forgetting
• Before the meal, I helped filled the personalized glasses with ice, juice or water by the freezer... like every meal at grandmas. :)
• After the meal I helped dry dishes and count silverware, hehe... while the younger kids were playing ping pong. Ah, I love it...
• Present opening time! The ones who do the most opening are Grandma and Grandpa. Allow me to explain... The tradition of the past several years has been for gma & gpa to give us $20 at Thanksgiving to buy ourselves a gift with by Christmas. Then we wrap it up and bring it to the Christmas party... and we give it to them to open and see what "they got" for us. Then we explain our gift, give them a hug, and get some more money. ;)
• This year I bought myself a sweet Greek cookbook with lots of stories about Greece and Greek cooking mixed in between all the recipes.
• Afterwards there's more sweet treats and hanging out... This year it included a birthday cake and homemade ice cream in celebration of birthdays!
• And albeit a bit silly to share, I was thrilled by the final event of the night... my 2 year old twin cousins had me help them go potty on the big potty! hehe. I was so proud of them, remembering to wash their hands and flush the stool and everything... :)
• Before I went to bed tonight, I started to read some random books off my shelf that I either hadn't read or haven't read in awhile.

Overall, what a wonderful Christmas!!! :)

Today was pretty great too... I really thought a lot about the sermons I heard (I posted about them on my other blog). I also watched "Becoming Jane" with Mo & Mom, read some more, and took a nice long nap. Then... I have deeeeefinitely stayed up to late - but it was all for a good skype conversation with a great friend, and of course, catching up on this post about my fun Christmas celebrations.

I've got a big week ahead. Thanks to my planner I have goals listed, plans made, and a schedule to follow. We'll see how well it goes. :)