We Had a Wonderful Christmas

We weren’t sure how we were going to manage to do Christmas this year living in our temporary housing, but it turned out wonderful in so many ways.

Our Christmas celebrations started on the 18^th with the decorating of the Christmas tree.

Earlier in the week, we found a tree stand at a thrift store for $5 and then Saturday, accompanied by our youngest son we went in search of our tree.  It’s been many years since we’ve had to shop for a tree in temperatures below 0 degrees Celcius (windchill minus 14) but we got lucky and found that “perfect” tree at the first lot we stopped.

Then it was back to the apartment to get it set up and allow the tree to thaw and the branches to relax.

Next was the little adventure of trying to find the box of Christmas decorations in our oldest daughter’s storage unit with only the light of a flashlight.

As well, that evening of the 17^th, our oldest daughter and her partner flew in from Shanghai where they both have teaching jobs.  They were picked up at the airport by his parents.   It was such a joy to get the call that they had arrived safely… tired from the long flight but safe.    And to also know that they were only a half hour drive away.

We made that drive on Sunday afternoon to pick them up and bring them back here to join in the fun of decorating the tree.

The angel on top was another thrift store find.  Our daughter has a tree topper that we brought back with us when we were posted to Germany many years ago, but for me a Christmas tree needs an angel on top.

The week before Christmas was a blur of the usual pre-Christmas grocery shopping and last minute gift shopping mixed in with searching for and applying for jobs.

We had to get creative while doing the Christmas baking.  This apartment came fully furnished but in amongst the dishes and pots we found only one bowl large enough to mix cookie dough in.  It was not, however, large enough to mix the dough for the Christmas rolls.  So I used the roaster insert from our roaster oven (<-affiliate link).

And was I ever glad that we decided at the last minute to bring the roaster oven with us.  This apartment’s oven has temperature control issues that made baking without burning things another challenge to be dealt with.   I was glad not to have that to contend with while cooking the turkey on Christmas Day.

As it was… I should probably have used the roaster oven to cook the lasagna for our Christmas Eve supper.   It took well over an hour to cook as I had to lower the temperature, raise the rack and check it every 15 minutes to make sure the bottom wasn’t burning.

Our oldest daughter and her partner and our son joined us on Christmas Eve for supper and exchanging gifts.  Our son also stayed overnight Christmas Eve.

Our middle daughter had a work function she had to attend on Christmas Eve but we picked her up from the GO station on Christmas morning to share a late breakfast with us and to open the rest of the gifts.

The turkey went into the oven around 1 pm and then it was just a matter of waiting for it to cook before we could have supper.

I even managed to short nap later in the afternoon while Dave, middle daughter and son watched a TV marathon of The Big Bang Theory.

While we were preparing the rest of supper, I got a call from our oldest.  The celebrations with her partner’s family were over a little earlier and they were on their way to spend the evening with us.

For me, that was the best Christmas gift of all… having all of us together.

The knowledge that we’d get to spend time with our children over the Christmas season was one of the bright spots that has kept me going through this time of transition.  But while I had hoped to have us all together at some point during Christmas week, now that our children are grown with partner’s families and other commitments, I hadn’t allow myself to get my hopes up that day would be the 25^th.

Later in the evening, our oldest and her partner returned to his parent’s place and our son went back to his apartment.  But our middle daughter decided to stay the night which allowed us to spend some rare one on one time with her on Boxing Day.

So, yes indeed, we had a wonderful Christmas.  The uncertainty of where our future is taking us was set aside for a time as Dave and I enjoyed the company of our children.

I hope that you, my readers, had as joyful and loving a Christmas as our family did.

And on that happy note, I have some news to share.  As we approach the New Year, you’ll be noticing some changes on my blog.

Our son, the Web Design and Internet Applications student will be updating and revamping my blog to give it a more current look.  It’s a change I’m looking forward to and one which I hope that you’ll like as well.

There are other changes coming but I’ll announce those when the time is right.

As we look to the future, my wish and hope for you all is for a Joyous and Prosperous 2012.  It’s going to be a great year!

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