Christmas Day

We had a wonderful Christmas day! I think I went to bed at 1 AM. We agreed that we would open presents at 9 AM. We took a little time getting started. I think we started around 9:30 AM. We spent about an hour opening gifts. I got so many gifts for Michael that he had to hurry up and open one after the other at the end. The kids seemed happy with what they got. Jonny loved his Benson Boone T-shirt that I got him. He also loved the canvas print of him and Benson Boone where Benson Boone is hugging him. He was pretty excited about that. That was Emily's idea. Michael liked his new Coach and Obsession colognes and we all had a good chuckle about his new thing of Happy Nuts anti-chafing lotion. Daniel was especially excited to get new headphones. They were the exact ones he asked for and he got them all set up today and he was pretty happy about that. Emily liked all of her things and she seemed excited about the book set I got her that was called Crossed. She said she had interviewed the author before or done an article about the author, I can't remember which. Michael got me five pretty dresses from Amazon. He also got me a beautiful tennis bracelet from Kohl's. Emily got me a cute gift set and Daniel got me a book. Jonny got me a Hershey's candy bar. He later came and gave me a big hug and thanked me for all of his gifts and gave me a card the said he was grateful and that I'm the best mother he could ask for. I think he was pretty happy with his gifts. 

After the gifts, Michael and the kids cleaned up and I started on the aebleskivers. It was nice to be able to teach Emily how to do it. She did a couple of batches. Michael and the kids prepared the bacon and the toppings and set the table and everything. 

I loved getting this sweet picture of Charlie from Nathaniel and Audrey!

After we cleaned up, I set up the laptop on the big TV so I could show everyone the video that Trista Dunbar made with all the messages from the missionaries serving from our stake. The kids and I couldn't resist doing our crossword really quickly together since we were on the big screen. Then we watched the video. It's 15 minutes long so I didn't make them watch the whole thing but we watched all the ones from the missionaries from our ward. Andrew called but he only had a few minutes so I talked to him for a couple of minutes and then I got ready for our late lunch/early dinner at Osaka. They seated us right away and they put a family of four near us. I always think it's weird when somebody sits down with you and they don't even glance in your direction or smile or nod or say hello or anything. After they ordered, I guess something fell from the ceiling and landed on the man's arm and he was really disgusted and angry and they moved them all to a different table. It worked out fine because we had the chef to ourselves and we were done eating shortly after 4 PM. The Lees were there, as well. They arrived a little after we did. Ashley is the one who gave me the idea. We decided to go out since we had so much going on with our trip to Utah and getting ready for our cruise. 

Another cute Charlie picture

Andrew was going to call at 4:15 PM or so, so we were concerned about that but he ended up not calling until we got home. I had already set up the laptop earlier so we were able to talk with him on that and then we were ready to do the Australia Brisbane Mission Christmas Devotional Zoom call on the big TV. That started at 5 PM. It was a long meeting and we didn't really get to see much of Andrew except for one picture which we've already seen but it was nice. After the Zoom meeting, Andrew called us from the church building and we talked to him for about an hour. Nathaniel was on for a little bit and Dad was on the whole time. Michael spent a lot of time encouraging Andrew with some advice about his mission. After we said goodbye to him, I did some chores to get ready for our trip and Emily helped me. Later, we all got together and played Jonny's new Jackbox games. We played four games and we especially liked the one that's kind of like guitar hero and another one where you have to guess the year that something happened. After that, everybody started getting ready for bed.

Our Christmas card

Merry Christmas, everyone!