Rowland Around: Christmas, Christmas, time is here. 2009

Two nights before Collin had his class play at school he told me he thinks he needs to bring his own Santa suit. WHAT!? I don't have a child's Santa suit in my closet! Then... thinking about it for a minute I asked, "Were you even going to tell me about your class play? Are parents invited?" ---Oh, I forgot, was his only response. I told him to ask his teacher if we needed to scavenger around for a suit or if the school supplied one for him. Lucky for us, the school supplied it! This was Collin playing Santa for his class play. He did such an AWESOME job with his part!

One of our traditions is making Gingerbread Houses at my moms

Christmas Eve we played some fun games at my moms.

One of them was taking turns rolling dice and if you were to roll doubles,

you unwrap the gift until someone else rolls doubles. Sound easy?

Try unwrapping the gift while wearing oven mits! Not as easy as it looks!

Another family tradition is getting to open a present (pajamas) on Christmas Eve.

We ended up giving our gifts to the family on Christmas Eve so they would have

them to "SNUGGIE" up to in the morning!

WOW! Were we ever busy trying to get the whole "Christmas shopping" done in time for Christmas! I did a lot of online shopping this year and found out I REALLY liked it!! I do have to say, I missed the hustle and bustle of crowded malls, jack frost nipping at my nose and driving store to store in search of that perfect gift. This year I decided to make homemade gifts for everyone and I tell you what, it's going to be a couple years before I do that again! It was WELL worth the time and back burning hours spent making them after hearing all the nice and extremely thoughtful compliments from my family and friends.
The kids were spoiled, as usual, with all the gifts they received from family, friends and of course, Santa! I love watching the expression on their faces after opening each gift. And of course, every year on Christmas night we say to the kids, "I better not hear one word that you're bored!" And of course, a few months go by and it's, "What can I do? I'm bored!" I'm starting to believe my parents when they used to tell us kids that we are lucky because all they had to play with growing up were rocks! That they didn't have games like Atari and Cabage Patch dolls. I am always telling my kids that I would have NEVER been bored as a kid if I had a DSi or a wii or an ipod! Ripstick? Nah, I had plastic roller skates that would come to an abrupt halt if I hit a blade of grass on the sidewalk. Anyway.... back to Christmas.... It was perfect.