Merry Christmas!

The day after, but Merry Day nonetheless.

We have grown to love love love our private Christmas mornings together. Nonetheless, I missed my Washington family, who we will see for our own private Christmas on Friday. BUBBLE! I like our BUBBLE! The kids woke early but not TOO early, with Nicholas rising earliest again. We ate like piggies all day, too.

It was a pretty low-key Christmas in terms of activities, despite my best efforts. The power problems, the resulting illness and clean up.......Oy. The house isn't tidy enough even for our tastes, much less up to hosting standards.

We did try a Candlelight Christmas Eve service but I remain, as always, a little apprehensive of the not-St.-Matthew's-ness of everywhere else. I have issues with "praise teams" (choirs with microphones) and churches with large projection screens that let you read the lyrics and whatever-else they want to drive home for you. The possible worst moment was by far the kids' favorite: to call the children forward for their circle, the church blasted the Blue's clues theme song, complete with a giant dancing Steve in surround sound on the screens. I am as open-minded and liberal a Christian as they come, but I don't think there is a place in my heart for the melding of Lutheranism and Nickelodean.

Nonetheless, this church has a huge outreach program local to Gig Harbor, they're very ELCA Lutheran (read: liberal) and they have a very active community. The women's circles are labelled with biblical names, two of which are Naomi and Rebekah. I am hoping this wasn't a representative service, especially given they were doing four of them on Christmas Eve, and then one again on Christmas morning.

Just about everything the kids received was open-ended and designed to fulfill them in some capacity. Except the goo balls. Both big kids received digital cameras, acoustic guitars and land-to-sea robot cars. Santa blessed G with two hermit crabs, N with a workbench and D with a barn set.

D. D will be TWO this week. I can hardly believe that. We have no plans as of yet, either. How convenient for a New Year's Eve baby, to have the whole country party all day.

We gave away Elvis today. I could have shed the Cavy months ago, but the kids did love him, and I have never re-homed an animal ever. Unfortunately, the kids didn't change his bedding or clean the cages or buy the hay bales. Little dude ate a lot. I am so excited for Samwise Gamgee (that's his perfect name now, and I had nothing to do with it!!!!!!!!!!) that he is home now with a true Guinea pig enthusiast. She's a homeschooler, and she is a big Cavy nerd. Like, guinea pig show prize winning, "no, Cavies are closer related to cows than to rodents" kind of nerd. This couldn't have BEEN more perfect of a placement. It's like I dreamt her up, except I have known her for over a year!