Okay, I’ll admit I ignored the weather reports a little. After all, up until now there was scarcely a sign that it was actually winter. Little snow, balmier temperatures- what was not to love about this weather? Because of this I procrastinated a liitle. I guess I really didn’t believe the weatherman. Obviously I should have!
The hustle and bustle of Christmas is over but the memories still warm my heart. Christmas morning we woke up to a white winter quilt of snow. Tyler’s girlfriend Monica’s car died last week so he went and picked her up to spend Christmas morning with us. They arrived back at the house around 7am. As per tradition we read the Christmas story of Jesus’ birth from Luke chapter 2 to remind us of the true meaning of Christmas before we started opening presents.
It was fun watching a little one open presents again but the expressions on the faces of my teenagers were just as priceless!
After finishing up at my house we loaded the rest of the presents in the truck and headed to my parent’s house for some more Christmas fun.
After opening up more presents there
We ate
And headed over to my mother-in-law’s for some more gift exchanges
and a game of Mexican Train
Soon it was time for the evening to end and I think the look on Gracie’s face tells it all!
Merry Christmas everyone!
Our Christmas Eve tradition for as long as I can remember was to go to my grandparents house after midnight mass and have pasties. My family is of the French Canadien heritage and I guess that meat pies are traditional Christmas Eve fare. As grandma got older it was getting harder for her to roll out the dough and fill the pasties, and not one to let any tradition slide (I’m a tradition freak!) I started going to her house the week before Christmas to help her make them and finally took over the responsibility myself once I felt like I had the hang of it.
My pasties never taste the same year after year but aside from the first couple rather dry years they have turned out fairly good if I do say so myself. There was the one year though that we were without pasties. I can laugh about it now but at the time I was heartbroken! I had spent a good day and a half making pasties that year (they are a little time consuming) and after baking them and wrapping them I had put them in a box and set them on the deck to freeze. In Minnesota we can do that! That Christmas Eve before going to mass I went out to the deck to get the pasties and put them in the oven on a bake delay so they would be done when we got out of church but all I found was an open box with bits and pieces of tin foil littered around it. My pasties had been eaten! We will never know if it was our dog or some other animal that had eaten them but I always blamed it on the dog since I never liked her anyway.
I immediately burst into tears. What were we going to do without pasties for Christmas Eve? I called my mom crying and she laughed and told me it was no big deal, she had pizza in the freezer and we could use that. But it was a big deal to me at the time and I cried all the way to church that night and halfway through mass. I don’t recall what we might have ended up eating that night. It could have been cheese and crackers and Christmas cookies. But the end result was the same. Christmas Eve was still a wonderful family evening with all the people we love and Santa still came that night. But you can bet I don’t leave the pasties on the deck anymore!
Saturday- I felt the need to return a Christmas present I had purchased for one of the boys so Zach, Jeff and I headed to St. Cloud. Aside from going to church later, we didn’t do much else.
Sunday- I didn’t leave the house all day! I made the pasties for Christmas Eve, made the popcorn snack mix for my associates at work and wrapped presents for the better part of the day. Jeff went to the wake of one of his former co-workers who passed away from cancer and then came home to watch the Vikings game.
Monday- Boy Scout Christmas party tonight. They exchanged gifts, ate some snacks and went sledding the redt of the evening. The love of my life turned 46 today, Happy Birthday Jeff!
Tuesday- We celebrated Jeff’s birthday tonight. Mom & Dad came over for cake and ice cream and we played some cards. It was a nice evening.
Wednesday- finished wrapping presents!
Thursday- Christmas Eve was spent traditionally with Tyler & Monica joining us for mass then Mom & Dad coming over afterwards for pasties.
Friday- Merry Christmas everybody!
Jeff turned 46 yesterday. Aside from some gray hair and a larger clothing size then we got married he’s still the same teddy bear I married over 20 years ago. I love him and wish him all the best in the next year. Happy Birthday sweetheart!
**Update- This post was originally written 12/22 but because of the winter storm & Christmas I couldn’t get anywhere with highspeed to upload my photo**
Every year my cousin Janeen holds a Christmas party for a few friends and family members. This year I didn’t know how long I would last since Zach and I were up early for a day of skiing at Powder Ridge. After coming home from Kimball I freshened up, grabbed some games and a small plate of treats and Zach, Jeff and I headed over for a night of fun.
I really enjoy Janeen’s Christmas parties because it is a rare opportunity for me to let loose and enjoy since often I am the one hosting a party (Mardi Gras, March Madness, tailgate party, New Year’s Eve party, etc).
We arrived at Janeen and Als around 7pm and enjoyed some appetizers while we sat around catching up with those we don’t see as often. Janeen had music going in the background and after a scary rendition of the Jingle Bell dance we decided it was time to get the games started before she was too far gone!
Party games are a must at our Christmas and New Years parties. Although the men complain they always join in and come up with some very unique and creative answers and clues (“it’s white and in the morning you slap some yellow on it”- what in the hell was that?). Laughter peels throughout the night and in the wee hours of the morning we find ourselves heading for home cheeks cramped from laughing and ready to do it all over again in a few weeks at my house on New Year’s Eve. We definitely have to come up with a June or July party like these so we don’t have to wait so long to do this craziness again.
Saturday- Today we went skiing at Powder Ridge for the Boy Scouts then we went to my cousin Janeen’s annual Christmas party.
Sunday- A relatively relaxing day. Went to town to get some groceries. Made lasagna for supper then decorated the Christmas tree and the rest of the house. Watched Julie & Julia.
Monday- Dad had his surgery today. Took longer then expected but everything went well. At Scouts tonight we had a guest speaker. Sargeant Curt Mowers from the Minnesota State Highway Patrol talked to the boys about pedestrian safety, bike safety, school bus safety and seat belt and airbag safety. He was very interesting and the boys were attentive listeners.
Tuesday-Jeff had a meeting for work & afterwards they went to Buffalo Wild Wings for supper and a few drinks. Zach and I stayed home and did absolutely nothing, which was absolutely wonderful. Listened to the Wild game since it was not televised. The game itself wasn’t exciting but the ending was. We scored a goal with 38.7 seconds left in the game to win it! Go Wild!!
Wednesday- Celebrated my Aunt Bonnie’s birthday tonight with a small party at Nana’s house.
Thursday- Bible Study tonight was on Matthew 9. More healings (paralytic, hemorrhaging woman, 2 blind men, dead girl) and the point in the Bible where we see the leaders turning against Jesus. Lex brought popcorn cupcakes which we chewed during the DVD portion. Our notes got kind of sticky!
Friday- A stay at home night. I was feeling stomach twinges so I opted out of going to the Tri Parish Council Christmas party 😦
Saturday Dan V., Heidi and I took the Boy Scouts in our troop skiing at Powder Ridge’s Boy Scout Day. Every December Powder Ridge picks a couple of weekends for the Boy Scouts to ski as a group with reduced rates.
We left Trinity at a little after 8am and arrived in Kimball at 9:30. It took us about 35-40 minutes to get the boys checked in, paid for, and equipment rented. The boys were eager to hit the slopes right away but Heidi made them all wait until we could get a group picture. As it was, a few slipped by us and headed for the hills anyway!
Even though the highest the temperature got was 22 degrees (with a windchill of 12) we hardly saw the boys all day. They came in a few times but it wasn’t to warm up. It was to…you guessed it EAT! Dylon got a chili dog that he had to use a spoon to uncover from the mound of chili piled on top of it. Some had cheeseburgers, packed lunches, soup or chili. Some of us had also brought snacks from home since the food at the diner there was pretty spendy.
Heidi and I played ski police and made sure everyone kept their helmets on. Nobody wanted to wear the helmets but it’s a Scout rule that we rigorously enforced. We watched the boys come down the hill gracefully only to sprawl out on the ground at the very bottom. We also watched the snowmobile bring down an unconscious man on a stretcher. They had the oxygen on him and everything. Word was he had been laying there by the trees for almost an hour before anyone saw him!
Luckily our crew stayed safe.
Every year my cousin Janeen and I get together a week or two before her annual Christmas party to make our candy and cookies. It’s a fun holiday tradition for us both. This year Monica and Gracie joined us. While I don’t know how much “help” Gracie was it was cute to watch her.
Janeen actually started the weekend before by getting the Spritz cookies, surprise cookies, peanut blossoms, Ritz dipped, and butterfinger bites done. What a huge help that was getting that out of the way!
After work Wednesday I came home and got the mounds balls, peanut butter balls and berry shortbread dreams mixed up so they could chill. I had made the brownies for the petit fours and put them in the freezer Tuesday night as well as made BBQ turkey meatballs to put in the crockpot for supper Wednesday night.
When Janeen got off work and got to my house we all had supper and then rolled up our sleeves and got to work. We rolled the peanut butter balls only to have Gracie re-roll them into logs. She helped us stir the mixes and shook the spoon and got powdered sugar all over the place. And when she was helping wash dishes she got more water on the floor then in the sink! But by the end of the night we got accomplished what we had set out to do. We made: haystacks, peanut butter balls, mounds balls, petit fours, gourmet pretzel rods, cornflake wreath cookies, berry shortbread dreams, pretzel wreaths, and peanut butter fudge.
I still have a few things to do on my own: peanut butter cups, black cherry swirl fudge, molasses creams, pumpkin date cookies, cherry bon bon cookies, sugar cookies, cathedral window cookies, almond apricot bites, waffle cookies, chex mix, popcorn snack mix, and a few new recipes I’m thinking of trying. It will be a busy (and sugary) couple of weeks, but I am up to the challenge!
What a SWEET holiday Chirstmas is!
Saturday- My great niece Raegan turned 1 today. Happy Birthday you little angel! Unfortunately I didn’t make it to her 1st birthday party because I had already made plans for a shopping trip in St Cloud. The next 2 weekends before Christmas I will be busy so this was pretty much the only day I could go. Zach and I got a lot accomplished though and I’m feeling better about what I have bought. We left at 8am and got back at 4:30, just in time to go to church. After supper we watched the Wild game.
Sunday- Got Zach to catechism then started on the rest of the Christmas baking. Thirteen hours later I was done. After some relax time with a book I turned off the lamp on the nightstand at 2:30am.
Monday- BUSY day at work. The customers are starting to get in panic shopping mode. Isn’t it a little early for that? At Scouts tonight we had the leaders and the scouts watch their seperate youth protection videos. I am taking the training online so I took this opportunity to attend the vigil mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception since I have book club tomorrow night.
Tuesday- We had our Christmas party for the Bookies tonight. We also celebrated our 100th meeting as well!
Wednesday- One of the Boy Scouts in our patrol has asked me to be his confirmation sponsor so I attended his large group meeting tonight. Father LaFlamme did a wonderful presentation on how we are all called to be prophets.
Thursday- Bible study tonight on Matther 8. We read about some of the early miracles in Jesus’ ministry (cleansing of the leper, the healing of the Centurian’s slave and Peter’s mother-in-law). Jeff Cavin’s talk was so enlightening I wrote one whole page of notes just on the first paragraph in the chapter!
Friday- took Zach to town so he could hang out with his friends at the mall and Jeff and I went to Famous Daves for supper. Came home and I watched the Wild game while Zach packed for the skiiing trip tomorrow.
Simply the Simmonds Life 
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