Anderson Family News: Christmas 2010

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Christmas 2010

We had a really nice Christmas this year, although the circumstances surrounding it were certainly unexpected. My grandma was suddenly hospitalized with severe pneumonia and in ICU on a ventilator the week before Christmas. Because she was in Fort Smith, along with my mom who wanted to stay near her, we cancelled our plans to travel to Mena and had our family Christmas dinner at my brother's house in Ft. Smith on Saturday afternoon. Nick and Brandy were wonderful hosts and the meal was amazing! They did all the cooking so Mom could just relax. I made a sweet potato casserole and Chris smoked a turkey, but they did the rest and it was yummy! It was certainly not the same as being at Mom and Dad's house with all my grandparents there, but we made the best of it and were able to go visit grandma at the hospital after we ate.

Also, since this was my year to work Christmas Eve (night), we treated the night of the 23rd as our Christmas Eve and the 24th as Christmas morning. Ayden never knew the difference, and Santa was kind enough to comply with our change in plans :) We had a blast making cookies, putting out reindeer food, and reading The Story of Christmas and The Night Before Christmas before tucking Ayden into bed in his snuggly footed Christmas pj's. He fell asleep early (thanks to no nap that day) and Chris and I were able to get the train table, gifts and stockings all set out. Chris had worked all week on the trampoline and it was ready and waiting in the backyard with a big red bow! Ayden woke up Christmas morning and was super surprised and excited with all the toys! We had Uncle Nick call and pretend to be Santa and say he left a present outside...at which point we bundled Ayden up (it was COLD and RAINY!), covered his eyes, and led him out to his new trampoline! He was SOOO excited!! He would have stayed out there all day if it wasn't freezing! We are already looking forward to pretty spring days when he can play all day on it! After we came inside, Ethan finally woke up and Ayden helped him open his gifts. Then we had our 2nd annual Christmas morning breakfast of Monkey bread and bacon and it was VERY good if I do say so myself. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and watching Christmas movies before I headed to work that night. We still have all of Chris' family to celebrate with as soon as we get a chance to head to Mena which will hopefully be soon! All in all we made some wonderful memories having Christmas with our two sweet boys!!

putting out the reindeer food!