Christmas Day 2012-What a Wonderful Day!!

I will admit right here -right now - I was pretty nervous to see Christmas day arrive. Why you should ask? This was to be, our first Christmas away from our family. How would I survive without the grands and the kids. Our house was usually swarming on Christmas eve and Christmas day and yes on Boxing day also. I would be running around like a chicken with my head cut off making sure everything was perfect for everyone. Isn't that 'mama's' job? How would the kids survive without us? 
Well we survived and had the best christmas we could have ever hoped for..and guess what?-all the family survived without us! Isn't that wonderful.
I chuckled when I saw this posting on our daughters-Facebook status...all my hard work wasn't in vain.

I now know why when I was a kid my mom always looked so frazzled & tired at Christmas. Moms (& dads sometimes too) do all the work and the fat guy gets the credit!!
Served supper for 9 tonight - ham, turkey, gravy, 3 kinds of stuffing, carrots, squash, turnip, 2 pumpkin pies and a cheese cake. I'm tired! Off to put my feet u and ignore my destroyed kitchen.

On another note - thanks mom (and dad) for all my wonderful Christmas memories as a kid, I know now what it takes since having my own kids. Xo's...

Christmas eve we had our neighbour Debbie over for lunch and can you guess what we had?

Yes I brought some East Coast Maritime Lobster with me just for  Christmas Eve

We wrapped the few gifts we had gotten for each other, and hit the bed fairly early, as we needed to be up really early to facetime with our daughter and family to see the 'santa' openings. We truly felt like we were right there! Just before signing off I noticed a message on skype from our good friends Linda and Jim back home so we hopped on there for a couple of minutes and wished each other a very merry christmas.

There was no room to put the bikes under the tree but the quilting machine is under the steering wheel ...there was room for lots of bling tho :)

Last week I noticed in the local online newspaper the Caloosa Bell that they were seeking volunteers at the Labelle Legion to help prep and serve meals to shut-ins, seniors and the less fortunate. What a good idea  so I immediately called and signed us up. I had to choose between church service and volunteering -and it didn't take me long to decide this is also a wonderful way to worship. 

yes my crazy Elf is "The Christmas Story" crazy-last year he got the leg lamp and our daughter found this shirt this year.

Nice Jammies from Old Navy

We quickly opened our presents had some breakfast hopped in the shower, grabbed our aprons and off we went to Labelle. Our friends in Lehigh, Debbie and Kenny met us there. It was very well organized, we filled up 650 turkey dinner trays with all the trimmings, plus salad and dessert, and the volunteer drivers loaded up their cars, trucks, and vans and headed out the door with their delivery lists. What fun we had.

Myself and Deb at the legion

Kenny and Rick counting cake

filling the trays

They were offering us bloody marys and screwdrivers and beer (after all it was a legion) but we opted to 'wait' until all the dinners were packed. What a good feeling, and I sure didn't have time to be lonesome we were all so busy bantering with each other~the Christmas music was playing and we were definitely all in the Christmas spirit. After the task was completed...we all sat for a beverage, and somehow my sweet toothed elf managed to 'charm' some left over brownies out of someone.

The breakfast of Champions-Beer and Brownies

The four of us returned back to the resort around 1pm, where we sat out in the beautiful weather for a couple of hours.

Look Lilly Sant left us more toys at Auntie Debbie and Uncle Kenny's house..yipeee

Then it was time to head on over to the club house for our Christmas Dinner. And what a feast it was! There were over 50 people in attendance and we all took a gift for the yankee swap. Our neighbour Debbie also joined us at our table. Food was very abundant, and we thoroughly enjoyed the fellowship! There were lots of laughs.
Our friends Deb and Ken provided a wonderful snack platter, and I made my famous Sweet Potato Casserole (which I forgot to take a picture of)

We returned home, and it was time to track down the other kids. We called our east coast son who doesn't use skype (he was at his sister's for dinner earlier, and I'm sure she was thoroughly impressed Don that you gave the little girlies harmonicas for Christmas, hope you waited till after she fed you)~and we skyped with our other sons and our son in law who were way out on the west coast of Canada. So before bed we had pretty much covered the family. We were in bed fairly early as we were beat...tired but content and fullfilled. Today it is extremely warm but also very very windy. We took down the tree and put all the decorations and gifts away. Rick has been tying down awnings, and Debbie next door has been gathering up wheel covers that are blowing around. Why folks would go away for Christmas and not put their awning away is beyond my understanding. We couldn't get one to roll up (Rick thinks the arm is bent from the wind) so he took our tie downs over and secured it in the down position. I sure hope the owners will be able to fix it. I see that you all had a wonderful Christmas also, with family and or friends..and for those of you who are travelling ...be safe out there!!! Thank you for stopping by, I'm now off to put my feet up, and do nothing...tomorrow we are heading down to spend the day with Deb and Ken and will definitely be getting some shopping in.
Elaine
Rick Tucker and Lilly