Post Christmas Pictures

******Warning*****Warning****Warning***** Long Post Ahead


Ok, now that you have been warned that this post will be longer than usual, you may proceed, but I did warn you. I have several pictures posted with commentary for the pictures. This is the part of the Cash Christmas 2008.

We begin each Christmas Eve at Nadine's home. My family along with my mom and her new husband, Andy, arrived around 6:15. David led us all into a time of reflection of just what Christmas is all about. David did a great job, we read scriptures in the Bible, sang a song with all verses, read more Bible scripture, and sang more songs with all the verses. This continued on through several sections of Scripture. By having this time of reflection on the birth of Christ, and just what all God has done for us, we turn our focus from what the world thinks we should celebrate to the real reason we celebrate Christmas. It is all about Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

Here are the options of food we had and us eating our food.
None of them are Weight Watcher friendly.

Yes, this is me getting ready to eat a huge Oreo ball.

From eating, we went into Nadine's living room and opened gifts. I did spare you and I didn't post every picture I took that night. Here we are..................

Nadine gave David this coaster from San Fransisco. Nadine travels all over the USA where she buys us odds and end things from places she gets to visit.

My mom played a lot of Sudoku while we traveled to Atlanta. Nadine thought this would make an excellent gift. Not sure if our mom thought so; she looks a little frighten.

I love to cook.

There is a story behind this gift. Nadine took Carley up to Troy University back in September to check out the college. Nadine graduated from there moons ago. Nadine bought this for Carley but gave it to her early as a Christmas gift. Lucky for us, these past few days have been really warm, so I was able to take the hoodie out of Carley's closet and wrap it up for Nadine so she could re-give Carley her Christmas gift.

Another great gift from Nadine's travels.

Care to guess where this came from? No, it isn't Hersey Park, PA.

This is Nadine, the mighty traveler. She wanted lots of books this year and she got them.

There is a story behind the cigar box. This box has been reused longer than I think I have been alive. Now each year we MUST use the box. Next year I will be using the box to give a gift to my mom or sister. The cigar box made it to Japan one year. The gift in the box was a Christmas ornament from the great state of Nebraska.

Nadine gave my mom a box and told her to open it. If she didn't want what was in the box, she could give me what was in the box and open this other gift. My mom kept the gift and it was a Christmas ornament of a trolley in San Francisco. I just loved it and was a little disappointed she didn't give me the gift. It was my turn to open the other box. The entire time I was unwrapping the gift I was saying out loud, "I hope I get the San Francisco Bridge." I did!

Carley's shirt from her favorite place she has never visited.


What inspiring movie director doesn't need one of these? Do my children have a cool aunt or what?

I wanted to show that we did help Nadine clean up our mess.

That concludes Christmas Eve, now we will move on to Christmas morning. The nice thing about having teenagers is they don't get up at some weird early AM time. I woke up at 8 am but that is because we did attend 11pm Christmas Eve services. I know I will not get any sympathy from these young moms, but I am not one of you. The guys were awake and ready to partake in the madness of opening gifts. The girls this year were slow in getting up, sorry guys, maybe we can do better next year.

Colton is ready, but where is Carley? She wasn't ready.

Here is Carley. This is a movie, The Italian Job, from Colton.

Carley gave Colton a deluxe set of poker chips and cards.

Time for another story. David and I try very hard to spend the same amount of money on each child. This year Colton was receiving just one gift from his parents. The mom, me, was feeling horrible that he had only one gift under the tree from us. I went digging in Colton's closet to find somethings I haven't seen in years. I came across his bear he received as a new born baby. I couldn't resist wrapping the bear up for Colton.




We had to take a time out to check on the "boys". We gave Levi and Gideon beef marrow bones. It kept them busy while we open Christmas gifts.



David had a difficult time with this box. Colton placed his certificate to his dad for an airsoft face mask in the box. The box was quite tricky to open. David ended up destroying the box.


This much awaited Christmas gift.

The mess

We ended around 10 am and I had until 12:30 to get my act together to host Christmas dinner. Nadine, my mom, and Andy joined us for lunch. Since I was busy with lunch, there are not any pictures of our feast. After lunch, we went into the family room and opened more gifts from my mom and we gave out our gifts to Nadine, my mom, and Andy.

This is Andy and notice what is on his travel coffee tumbler. Isn't it something that I, the FSU fan, buys anything with a gator on it. I hope he enjoys drinking coffee from it.

This is the Happy Birthday Jesus cake that we had this year. Nadine made a red velvet cake. It was yummy!

Thanks for stopping by and bless your heart if you read all the details. Hope you enjoyed the 2008 Cash Christmas.

Blessing to all and have a Happy New Year,