Friday, December 27, 2013

CHRISTMAS




Sorry this is a little late getting posted.  Time just seems to fly by me so fast.  But I wanted to let everyone know about the awesome Christmas I had.

We left much later than I wanted to.  I was still wrapping gifts on Christmas morning!  And then when I did get everything done and ready to go I left three of my sister's stocking gifts on the dining room table.  Augh!  But I will be seeing her on Saturday so that's OK.  I will give them to her then.  Better late than never, right?

We had a great drive up to her house.  It's a 2 hour drive.  We left about 10:30 and Joe drove part of the way so I was able to get some pictures as we went along.  This is Pennsylvania along I-95.  You can just tell how cold it is by looking at the photos.




Here we are crossing the Delaware River into New Jersey.
And this is in New Jersey along Route 31.  You can tell how rural it is.  It's such a pretty drive no matter what the season is.

We didn't have snow, but there was snow on the ground in northern New Jersey.
We switched driving about half way up and I finished the drive.  We got there a little before 12:30.  Not bad at all.  We made really good time.

Elaine's tree was so beautiful.  As usual.  I always love seeing her tree.  She puts so much thought and work into it.

Her little dog, Cody, was so excited.  She gave him a toy so that he would be occupied while we opened our gifts.


We went right to work opening our gifts.  So many beautiful, and useful things.  Some fun things too.

I love this glass sculpture.


After we were finished we had some cheese and crackers to hold us over until dinner time.  Then Joe took a nap on her recliner.  He slept good too.  He never heard us talking, laughing, calling our family, the TV.  Nothing.  It was good sister time.

Elaine had gotten a musical, sound activated fountain from one of her friends.  It was like the clapper where you clap your hands and it plays a Christmas song and the water flows.  We wanted to try it out so we went into the kitchen, filled it with water and tried to get it going.  At first nothing happened.  I guess it had to get primed.  But at last it started up.  It was cute.


But then...  we discovered  that if you said the word "clap" it would start up.  We were hysterical.  We tried all different words like "house", "dog", and Elaine even tried "applause" and nothing.  But if we said "clap" there it went.  We were laughing so hard we were crying.  When Joe woke up, we showed him.  I went to say something to him and called to him "Joe" and the fountain started.  We laughed so hard again.  So if you say "clap" or "Joe" the fountain works.



Before dinner we watched the Queen's Christmas Speech on the BBC website.  We do this every year.  We are such anglophiles.

Then it was time to eat.  We had a pork roast, roasted potatoes and carrots and green beans with spaetzle.  So very good.  There were homemade cookies for dessert.  Of course we pulled our crackers before dinner and took the obligatory pictures of us wearing our crowns.

Dinner's on the table -- along with the Christmas Crackers.




Homemade cookies.  Yum!
The prizes in the crackers were pretty good this year.  Elaine got a ruler, Joe got a mini address book, and I got a giant paperclip which I am going to use as a book mark.

My sister always decorates her house so beautifully.  Even down to the bathroom with Santa towels and snowmen rugs.  I didn't take any pictures of that, but here are some of her other decorations.









And look at these cute plates she has.  I just love spending Christmas at my sister's house.  Everything is always so perfect.





We ended up leaving around 6:30 and got home around 8:30.  The drive home in the dark was sort of scary.  I don't like driving in the dark especially on winding unlit roads.  But again God kept us safe and we made good time. 

I was so tired that I went to bed at 10:00 and slept straight through till morning.  Then it was back to work on Thursday.  But that's another story for another post.

Hope your Christmas was great.
---------------------------------------------------
Christmas weather:
Partly cloudy
High:  31 degrees
Low:  22 degrees
(Brrr!!!)  It was COLD!!
Sunrise:  7:21 a.m.
Sunset:  4:41 p.m.
9 hours and 20 minutes of daylight
Sunrise on Wednesday, December 25, 2013

2 comments:

  1. It looks like you had fun time. We stayed home, just 3 of us. Enjoyed our meal and opening a few gifts. I didn't decorate as I usually do. Not sure what my problem waa this year. Laziness? I hope I can do better next year!

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  2. I love Elaine's decorations! The 'raise a little cane' had me laughing. The food looked absolutely delicious! That waterfall was a treat. Thanks for including the video. It was nice seeing Cody again too. He's such a little sweetie.And photographs so well! Ha ha!
    Glad to see you all had a fun time.

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