Belated Christmas day smiles

I know that I am almost 3 weeks late posting my Christmas Smiles…. but at least I’m 2 days early doing my weekly Sunday post. In fact, this is my second post this week… Will wonders never cease?

However, there is a reason that I am posting today. I’m taking a group on a cruise. (I know… it is a tough job but someone has to do it!!!) We leave after Church on Sunday. Erin, Patrick and 4 of my grandchildren are part of the group so it is an extra special cruise for us. Erin and family will arrive today so I know this will be my last chance to blog for a while.

I want to document our Christmas Day smiles before it is Valentine’s Day. I guess it is better late than never.

 

As I told you in my last post, my Christmas started early since I was still up at midnight Christmas eve. I helped Mindy with last minute wrapping and just enjoyed the last minutes of Christmas Eve.

I went to bed about 12:30. I sleep with Claire and Grampy stays in EJ’s room. I don’t get a lot of sleep but it is fun being there and the kids are always excited that we are spending the night at their house. That night it wasn’t Claire that kept me awake. I had 2 esophageal spasms during the night. The pain in my neck and jaw is too severe to sleep through. I surely wish the meds they are giving me would stop these attacks…. but I digress… I finally got to sleep in spite of the pain and my excitement that Santa Clause was coming in a few hours.

And sure enough….. Santa came. Claire and EJ snuck out of bed bright and early and went down stairs to find Santa had filled the stockings and left a room full of gifts. They excitedly woke the rest of us so we could join in the merriment.

What fun it is to watch excited children open their gifts.  We also appreciated the thoughtful gifts we received.

I was especially touched that my little Claire bought me a new charm for my Brighton charm bracelet with her own money. Those charms cost $20 each which is a fortune for a little girl to spend. She got me a sun glasses charm so when I look at it I will remember the cruise we are taking together down to sunny Mexico.

Mindy always does Christmas Eve dinner and I do Christmas day brunch. After all the gifts were opened we ate a nice meal and then we just lazed around the house all day in our jammies watching the kids play with their new toys. Since we had 3 iPads and 2 iPods in the room, we sat around playing electronic games together for hours. I wish I’d gotten a picture of us all sitting on the couch with our electronic devices.  I taught EJ how to play Gems with Friends (my favorite game) and before long he was beating me!!!!

Grampy is not an electronic game player, so he spent the day doing his favorite activity.

We played the day away and didn’t even get dressed until late afternoon when we decided to go see the movie,  Les Miserable. (I’ve tried for 20 minutes to get a picture of it to download and put in this post… but nothing worked so use your imagination.)

I loved the movie. The singing was not as good as when we saw the Broadway production but the acting was outstanding.  I really enjoyed the movie even though the emotions of watching it wore me out.

So this is how we spent Christmas day. The only sad part for me was being away from our Utah kids but we feel so blessed to have Mindy and family close by to be with.  My heart is full of sweet memories of Christmas 2012.

Have a good week.  I will share my cruise smiles with you when I get back. 

Hugs, Grammy Lura