Despite the best efforts from Santa Claus, Andy’s main present arrived a day late.
These glasses are specially designed to enhance brown liquor and they just look cool. Merry Christmas Andy!
Christmas!
Merry Christmas family and friends! Our day started at about 6:00 am when I heard both kids downstairs talking to Grandma Marilyn. They might have been a little excited… We started with the stockings where the kids learned that the Santa presents wrapped in gold paper belonged to Laura…
… and the Santa presents wrapped in silver paper belonged to John.
Santa was good to both of our kids this year! Laura got two Lego Elves sets, a sketchbook, and a Fidget Spinner. She also got a letter from Santa letting her know that her main gift, COPIC markers, had to come from Japan and they would be delivered to our house sometime in January.
John got two Nerf guns, two Lego sets, and a Fidget Spinner.
Once the Santa presents were opened, the kids got down to business opening the rest of the presents. John was very excited to get to open the biggest box – a ball return for practicing baseball in our yard.
Laura’s favorite present is her new smartphone! It was the last present she got to open and I called it while she was opening it. Needless to say, she was very shocked because Andy had told her that she would not be getting a phone for a while. It was a cool parent win (for one day at least)!
It did not take long to open all the gifts and both kids got some very nice presents. Here is Laura’s pile…
…and here is John’s pile.
The kids spent the rest of the day enjoying their new presents. Laura spent most of the day on her new phone texting and talking to her friends. John was very excited to get to use his new, huge Nerf gun – The Judge. There were darts everywhere all day long.
We spent the rest of the day relaxing, eating some great food, and hanging out. It was a great Christmas. I hope you all had great days as well!
Christmas Eve
It was mostly a day of Christmas Eve traditions in the Kassel Household save for the unexpected snowfall! It was beautiful sitting in our living room just watching it snow. It will be a White Christmas!
After a relaxing morning, I spent the day making food for Christmas Day, Andy went for a bike ride in the snow, Grandpa Ken and Grandma Marilyn arrived, and the kids played. We had a nice dinner and then the kids said goodbye to Chippy, our Elf on the Shelf, and Melty, his friend.
Each year, Santa lifts Chippy’s magic so that the kids can hug and kiss him goodbye. See you next year, Chippy and Melty!
We went to Christmas Eve services at St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church. Once we got home, the kids made Reindeer Food…
…and spread it on the driveway.
After the kids took their showers, Andy read “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”
Then, the kids put out milk and cookies for Santa.
We all headed to bed once everything was ready for Santa. A short time later, I heard a noise downstairs. I raced down to see what the noise was only to find that the stockings were stuffed, the milk and cookies were eaten…
…and there were piles of presents for the kids! Santa had come! Merry Christmas Eve!
Magic Tree Tour
Each year, we spend a night driving around town to look at the different Christmas lights. This year, we started our drive by visiting the three Magic Trees in town.
The first Magic Tree is at the Crossing Church. There are over 200,000 lights on this Sycamore tree.
Then, we went to the original Magic Tree in the Village of Cherry Hill. Will Treelighter did a beautiful job!
We finished our Magic Tree tour downtown. This tree is also wrapped by Will Treelighter. I love the greens and blues on this one!
Beautiful trees!
Ornaments
The yearly ornaments for the kids arrived today from Bronner’s in Frankenmuth, MI. Both kids chose personalized ornaments – John’s is a basketball and tennis shoes and Laura’s is a clarinet. When the day comes that these two have their own Christmas trees, they will have quite the collection of ornaments!
I also ordered a special ornament in memory of my Mom. It is really beautiful and will be on our Christmas tree every year.
Productive and Fun
I used my Macadoodles gift card today so I could try the White Christmas Martini. I reported back to my Director that it was tart and quite tasty.
I took the afternoon off to finish wrapping presents. Nearly everything is now wrapped with the exception of just a couple of things that have not come in yet. Both kids were also extremely excited to see that more presents were under the Christmas tree.
We spent the evening at Jeremy’s house relaxing and enjoying friends while we enjoyed some good food and tasty beer.
It was a productive and fun day all around. I can’t believe Christmas is in just a few, short days!
Gift Card
The Director of my office gave me a $20 gift card to Macadoodles for Christmas. A note in the card said to make a new, yummy cocktail and report back. Challenge accepted! I will be making a White Christmas Martini that uses Vodka, White Cranberry Juice, Rosemary-infused Simple Syrup, and Cranberries for garnish. I am looking forward to trying it tomorrow!
