Our 2008 Christmas Story

It all began with a couple of huge weekend snowstorms that left us with about 3 ft. of snow on the ground, which the kids loved!

The schools were closed both the Friday before Christmas and the Monday, so the kids had one day of school before Christmas with all of their Christmas parties on that day. We went to Lydia’s for her Christmas program and she was a Christmas tree representing how Germany celebrates Christmas, I thought that was fitting giving our family history and her grandfather Henry Herget.

Santa Clause came to visit her school and we were able to get the kids picture taken with Santa. Emily is not to sure about the situation.

Then on Christmas Eve we had a surprise visit from the Fire Department and guess what, they had Santa with them! Their fire engines came roaring down our street decked out in Christmas lights and Santa in the front seat. They stopped in front of our next door neighbors. And of course all of the kids on our street came out of the house. Santa gave them each a candy cane and a hot wheels car! We were lucky enough to get our picture with him.

Overall, this year was a little lonesome. John had quite a week at work, starting on Sunday leaving at 5:30am and not getting home until 7:00-9:00pm most nights and he finished out the week on-call on Saturday not getting home until 10:00am Sunday. He was exhausted.
Thankfully he was home for Christmas Eve. The kids and I had dinner at the Hulse’s and then we caught up with dad that night at 6:30pm. We had hot cocoa, listened to our family Christmas stories and let the kids open one gift. Their one gift is Christmas PJ’s and here they are:

Then Christmas day, Jack is at that age where 4:30am isn’t to early to see what Santa brought him. So he comes into our room to wake us up, our first reaction is to roll over and go back to sleep but we figured since dad had to leave at 5:30am and was going to miss Santa gifts we would do Santa gifts with him; so we all got up and went downstairs. They each got to open the gifts Santa brought and that took until about 5:00am. Then John went and got ready for work while I put the kids back to bed. And guess what they slept in until 8:45am, I couldn’t believe it. I think we are on to something here.

Christmas day the kids had to wait until dad got home to open the gifts under the tree, so to keep them occupied the sister missionaries dropped by and played battleship with Jack and helped me get ready for John to get home. It was a blessing to have them drop by!! John got home at 7:30pm, we ate our Christmas dinner of Ham, cheesy potatoes, homemade rolls, etc. and then we sat down and opened the rest of our Christmas gifts. The kids didn’t get to bed until close to 11:00pm!