Many Merry Christmases

Although we were planning to spend Christmas day in Cleveland with Kyle's family, we still wanted to celebrate at home. We had our Christmas a day early. The night before, we helped Isabel set out milk and cookies for Santa, and carrots for the reindeer. The next morning we had the pleasure of her waking us up to tell us we needed to go downstairs and see if Santa had come. That's not sarcasm; this is the first time she's been old enough to remember Christmas so it was fun for us to share that excitement with her.

When she came downstairs, she was very excited to see:


Unwrapping, squeals of delight, and giddy happiness followed. Isabel seemed to take as much joy out of helping us open our presents as she did her own.

After eating an I-do-say-so-myself delicious breakfast, we packed up and drove to Cleveland, where Isabel got to enjoy opening a few more presents on Christmas Day. In fact, Isabel got to open a lot more presents... at Grandmama's house, and then the main event at Oma and Opa's house where all the grandkids were involved in a maelstrom of wrapping paper as they unwrapped simultaneously.




There were other highlights: Kyle had arranged a getaway for the two of us while we were in Cleveland. We went to a bookstore, had hot chocolate, then spent a blissful night at Quail Hollow Country Club, where we had the most divine waffles for breakfast the next morning. There was also a scary part of the trip. There was a phone call to let us know that Kyle's Grandpa Bill had had a serious fall and was in the ER. Things looked really bad that night, but the next day we visited and he was alert and joking around, although very tired. Since then, he has been able to eat, walk, and razz the nurses, which we were very glad to hear!