Random Bits of Christmas

We went to a 9pm Christmas Eve service (and Rick sang the actual words to the song, not switching up   Nobis Pacem with Obese Possums as he had threatened).  It was a lovely service that ended up with everyone holding lit candles while singing Silent Night.  Annabeth had never been to anything like that before, since we stopped messing with that sort of thing when she was little and we were living in northwest Ohio where it was too cold and snowy to be dragging a little kid around to Christmas Eve services late at night.  

Of course, that meant that we didn't get home until fairly late, particularly since on the way home we discovered a large subdivision totally lit up with luminaries, thousands upon thousands of them.  They probably do this every year, but we'd never seen it before since we'd never gone out on Christmas Eve before.  We ended up driving around it some just to look at all the luminaries, and got slightly lost.

So, home late, and still had to finish up the annual treasure hunt -- Rick had to finish writing the clues, which this year were a takeoff of Madeline since he and the girls had been reading that aloud a few days before.  Then the clues had to be hidden (the kids were in bed by this time, and theoretically asleep), and the final gifts hidden away at the end of the hunt.

Which meant that when the cat came in the room and stood on my nightstand announcing that the Christmas tree lights had come on at 5:45am, I was totally dead, and tried to shoo him out of the room.  Except the kids were up by 6am.  Self portrait of how I look with less sleep than I need to function rationally:

In spite of the lack of sleep, it was a fun morning.  Santa brought Thalia the latest Percy Jackson book, a fluffy Panda Pillow Pet, and a sweatshirt from the Lotus Casino (which all makes sense if you've read all the books):

I got this swanky vase that they'd found at an estate sale. (This Christmas featured quite a bit of secondhand shopping and some crafting -- Dave Ramsey would be proud):

 Annabeth was thrilled to get convertible mitten/gloves, and as a bonus they were Hello Kitty themed (these were from Thalia):

Oddly, no pictures of Rick opening gifts.  Be assured that he was quite happy to get a Thor Christmas tree ornament.

Next, omelets for breakfast, along with smoked turkey. I was surprised to find a bit of bone in mine, since it was supposed to be boneless turkey.  Then I realized that it was actually a large chunk of one of my molars.  Ack!

Rick headed out to go to church.  The rest of us opted to be heathens, figuring we'd already gone to church the night before.  I took a nap and sulked about my broken tooth.  Thalia lounged with her Panda Pillow Pet

 and Annabeth apparently painted her nails and took dozens of pictures with the camera, which I just now found when I loaded the photos to the computer.

The rest of the day was spent quietly -- fire in the fireplace, watching movies, playing with gifts.  A nice way to spend the holiday, other than the tooth issue.