Merry Christmas!!

Yesterday, the Webster family celebrated another successful Christmas. All six of us attended the Christmas Eve service at Providence. The piano player, Ryan, played a mash-up of Christmas melodies during the offertory. When the notes of Home Alone 2 played, Dad leaned over and whispered, "Give this to Kevin." Down the row we passed the message until all of us smiling whispered, "Kevin's not here." I enjoyed the candle-lighting ceremony. The light passed person-to-person with the lights dimmed, and everyone sang Silent Night.

Afterwards we sat around the living room watching the first part of It's a Wonderful Life by Frank Capra. Clarence was still learning about George Bailey when we had to leave again. Our grandmother's church meets for a 'midnight' service. The seven of us took up a whole pew. They served communion, had a number of soloists and then lit candles as midnight approached. It was nice to wish people a Merry Christmas.

We have a tradition of opening one gift Christmas Eve night, and I opened pajama bottoms. Joseph and Liz stayed up late wrapping as they had traveled all day to Annapolis shopping. Mom had mixed and refrigerated the overnight coffeecake before we left for Nana's church. Dusty behaved well, and did not rip into any of the wrapped presents.

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Christmas dawned and after eating breakfast, we gathered around the tree in our bathrobes and opened presents in a reverse birth order. Daniel wrote a touching card with his generous theater gift card. Mom and Dad gifted me a Garvin GPS device that will come in handy in two weeks when we travel down to North Carolina. Joseph regifted a sweatshirt to Liz that she left in his car overnight. After she put it away in her bedroom, he was able to sneak it into a gift bag with a phone book and presented it to her again. Oh she got him. :)

Dad got a number of historic movies like Band of Brothers and the Pacific. Mom got him a new Kodak camera that has amazing zoom capabilities. Liz and I painted their bedroom and bought new floor lamps, in late November. Joseph generously provided gift cards to the Westfield mall. Daniel and Joseph exchanged sport jerseys. Dan received a Fabregas (Arsenal/Spain) soccer jersey, and Joseph got a Flacco (Baltimore Ravens) football one.

Mom, Liz, and I all received new coats this Christmas. We will be stylish women this winter! New bedding, Hawaii Five-O, Smallville, ToyStory3, Flight of the Concords, and a touchless candy dispenser round out some of the gifts exchanged this holiday. We spent the afternoon with Nana, Kate and Uncle Courtland. A light meal of ham sandwiches held us until dinner. Kate shopped at threadless.com and found some cute tees. She found an Inspector Gadget/ DaVinci man shirt for Joseph. Dan can sport his physics humor shirt about water displacement.

It began snowing after we had hugged our thanks/goodbyes. Dusty still prefers the indoors. As we hold the door open to offer the brisk outdoors to her, she stands and chooses the warmth. The storm today should drop 8-14" of snow. After watching the world turn white and visibility worsen, I dressed in layers. I started shoveling out the front walk, and was soon joined by others as we worked on freeing all the cars. Joseph made it safely back to Northern Virginia. Besides him, noone has to work until Tuesday.

2011 arrives Saturday.