Christmas Changes and Chaos

Times they are a changing and as hard as it sometimes is to let traditions go, we decided to try something new with the Hammel family this year and adopted a new tradition. After cleaning the house and cooking Christmas Eve morning, Daddy went out for some last minute shopping and the boys and I headed to mom and dads for the day. We were so happy to spend some time with Nana, Aunt Sissy, Aunt Mal-Mal, and Brookie B. We shared a quick lunch and laughed while we watched Brookie roll into the presents over and over again. I think she was trying to give us a hint that it was time to open gifts!

Brooke and Joey took naps while Ben, Sissy, Aunt Mal-Mal, Nana, and I made cookies to put out that night for Santa Claus. It was a lot of fun and Sissy, Ben, and I finished up the decorating of the cookies while Nana and Mal went to pick up Great Grandma. Following naps, my family, Nana, Great Grandma, Mal-Mal, and Uncle Craig went to church where we enjoyed an awesome service, featuring, of course, the vocal talents of Benjamin Michael singing a song called "The Friendly Beasts," which prompted my brother to ask "what happened to jingle bells?" and my mom to ask "why is Ben just standing there and not singing?" That's just how we roll, Nana; when you look that good, you don't have to bother with the actual singing of the song.

After church we rushed back to Nana and Bampaw's for a HUGE meal, for which Abby joined us. Following dinner we opened presents and all the kids had a great time and were spoiled rotten. It was fun to watch Brooke, on her first Christmas, get into opening the gifts she had admired (attacked) all day. Joey opened all his gifts with Uncle Craig and Abby as his helpers and was polite as always and ran over to give people kisses and big "thank yous!" after each gift. Ben was pumped with his stash and quickly began to open the boxes to enjoy the generosity of his grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

After gift opening we enjoyed the traditional Hammel family yule log icecream cake and the grandkids crawled on the couch to listen to Bampaw read "The Night Before Christmas;" my favorite Christmas Eve tradition and truly a memorable one this year with Brookie Marie attempting to pull my dad's ear off as she screamed at him, Joey lasting approximately 36 seconds before jumping off the couch and running around, and Benny patiently trying to listen to the story. I have it all on video, you really should see it! My dad has declared that he is not ever reading AFTER gift opening again. We kissed everyone goodbye and made it home around 8:45 p.m. to put out reindeer food, cookies and milk for Santa, and hit the sack to await Santa's arrival. Both the boys were wound up, obviously. Joey lay in his bed talking until well past 10:00 p.m. and Ben required some snuggling from Daddy to pass out.

Both boys slept well (despite a brief interuption from Joe around 2:30 a.m.) and Ben woke up just after 6:00 a.m. He lay in bed with us until about 6:45 a.m. when he just couldn't take it anymore and was sure he heard Santa at the neighbor's house. We woke up Joey who was content to drink his chocolate milk under the covers while he tried to wake up, and daddy went to check on Santa's status and, sure enough, he was just finishing our house!! The boys heard his sleigh bells and anxiously raced out to check out the tree and make sure Santa enjoyed his cookies and milk, which of course he did!

The boys tore into their gifts with Ben finishing his opening in record time and then lamenting the fact that he was all done! He was pretty happy with his gifts, especially the Nintendo DS and 2 games that Santa brought. Joey was a little more deliberate in his gift opening and still had 2 gifts left to open over an hour later (which killed Ben!), but he was too busy enjoying his opened presents to be bothered opening others. He seemed to really enjoy the Little People house Santa brought and also the Yo Gabba Gabba playset Daddy found.

While the boys were playing I preheated the oven for Ben's favorite...cinnamon rolls. Shortly thereafter the smoke alarm went off and Dean called me into the kitchen where black smoke was pouring from the oven. It seems the apple pie I had baked the morning before leaked all over the bottom of my brand new oven and was burning! It was a mess and completely smelled up the whole house. After getting control of the situation - I ended up baking the cinnamon rolls and then using a barbq spatula to scrape off the apple pie stuff while it was still hot and using the shopvac to vacuum it out!! It was about this time that I asked Dean where some of the gifts from mom and dads were? To which he responded "Crap!" They evidently had been left outside the night before on our partially covered front porch. Did I mention we got upwards of 2 inches of rain on Christmas Eve night?! The (slightly soaking) gifts were brought inside and nothing was ruined which was a Christmas Miracle!!!

After an obviously crazy and chaotic Christmas morning, we headed to Oma's house around 11:00 a.m. and the boys had fun playing with their 2nd cousins Carter, Nathan, and Lylah. We opened gifts there and shared a great meal and returned home exhaused around 2:30 p.m. Joey and Mommy took naps while Daddy and Benny played games and checked out daddy's new digital coin counter bank!

The rest of the evening was spent playing and cleaning up a bit. Nana, Bampaw, and Mal-Mal stopped by to check out the boys gifts. It was a glorious Christmas and we thank God for our blessings and the birth of his son, Jesus Christ! Merry Christmas!