Christmas Day. What a magical Christmas. Just wonderful!! On dec 23, Monday, we drove down to Lafayette for Ryan Routsongs baptism. It was a simple, yet special experience. We then spen the night at the Routsongs home to Christmas Eve. The big boys had a slumber party with Ash, Ryan, and Jack in their theater room. Dawson, Kay and I slept in Cassidy's room. Dawson was so sleepy he went right to sleep and slept all night without a stir. An angel baby :). Kaylee and I snuggled and we both slept all night too. I woke in the morning stepped on a sleeping Cooper. He had snuck in in the night and joined us in the room. It just made me smile. I had 3 of my little ones surrounding me and all were peacefully sleeping. I watched each one and my joy was just overflowing.
Christmas Eve is the Routsong family traditional celebration. The whole family was there besides Nicks family in Arizona and Grandma Great who was with her sister. A total of 16 kids, so happy to see each other. After our feast we spent a nice Cristmas testimony meeting, which has become an annual tradition. I had a chance to express my appreciation and love for my Indiana family and for their examples of strength and inspiration to me. Next came presents, one from a cousin and one from grandma to each child. Everyone was smiling when I looked around the room. The adults then exchanged "our favorite things" in a white elephant form. It was super enjoyable!
We set out for home and everyone but Dawson slept in the car. Arriving home we ate some pita dinner, wrote up our gifts to Jesus, opened up our Jammie's and watched The Nativity together. We tucked the kids in and let Santa do his magic:)
Christmas morning was completely magical. Everyone was happy! Everyone was smiling, and gracious, and filled with joy. The spirit in our home was one I'll never forget. Pure joy and true happiness being together with the ones we love the very most. The kids all opened their gifts of the same category at the same time till everything under the tree was gone. They chose to open the Santa sacks last, which was cute. As they got more and more gifts the words that they said were things like, "this is the best day ever!" And "this is the best christmas!" And that just makes me smile. All of our efforts to make it that kind of day apparently paid off. Nate gave me a beautiful silver necklace, and I have him an NIV Bible and a book which holds 4 different bible translations side by side for deeper study. After presents, we ate the breakfast things that they found in their stockings and the kids played with all their new goods all morning and afternoon.
In the late afternoon we met 3 other families at a local assisted living home and we went caroling through the hallways bringing Christmas cheer one last time before the special day was over. The families returned to our house afterward for a Christmas feast. We played christmas charades on the stage, put together a simple nativity scene while reading from Luke 2, and then watched a couple versions of the Nativity to remind us about the true meaning of this day. All of it was magical and memorable. I hope that every Christmas will be as enjoyable as this one:)
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