Monday, December 21, 2009

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas!

Every year, the weekend before Christmas, we head to Chicago to celebrate with my family. Phil had the annual party at his house and it was so great. He had wonderful food, horse drawn wagon rides, Santa, and we had a Nativity with the children. It was just awesome. I will post pics of the people that were there later. Here are a few snipets of the weekend. The pic above is the beautiful tree at my fav shopping center, Oak Brook. It was magnifico!

Phil's house is about an hour from Mom's so we all stayed at a motel Sat. after the Christmas party. Here we all are gathered together to head off to Phil's after checking in.

Mom had not been feeling well the week before and I was so happy that she bounced back and was doing great by Saturday. She's not one to miss a great party!
Phil and Bonnie hosted the Christmas party this year. Thanks for opening your home to all of us and making it such a memorable evening. You really out did yourselves.
The food that was prepared for this occasion was so good and tastey. I know that Melissa and Curtis did a ton of the cooking, along with many helpers. This pic is only a tiny bit of the feast. It was wonderful.
It was really dark by the time this horse drawn wagon arrived with the "Big Guy" himself and I could only get a clear shot of the horses. The wagon actually had lights on it and the horses had bells on too. Sounded so Christmasy when they arrived!
Santa was very well received by all the kids and adults too. He was very, very jolly...I won't mention why!

The hightlight of the night for me was the imprompto Nativity that we had the kids do. Midge made all the costumes in record time that night and we rehearsed only once.Most of the kiddos wanted to be angels, so we accomodated them! Here they are lining up for the their heavenly entrance. Megan was Mary, Ethan was Joseph, Mason was Baby Jesus, many angels and 2 wise men and one shepherd rounded out the play. I narrated and it was soooo sweet.This time last year Andrew was only a month old, this year he was able to be our only shepherd and ran across the "plains" to see baby Jesus (cousin Mason). He may look sleepy in this pic, but believe me, he was full of energy all night long.
We had to have the magic star...Thanks Eric for being so celestial!
Perfection...a true Silent night, Holy night!

3 comments:

Phil and Amanda said...

Looks so fun!! The kids are all so cute! I love the angel standing in the back...her face is the BEST!!! ;-)

Beth said...

What a wonderful way to celebrate, looks like you had a great time! I'm glad your mom was feeling better. I hope your Ashland Christmas is wonderful too!

Donna said...

Amazing all the neat Christmas things...AND food! What a cool family!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!