Christmas 2007

There were so many special moments this year.

First off, we were so thankful that our friend Keith came out of his back surgery alright. The surgery was nine hours long, and he didn't have feeling in his arms for about 24 hours afterwards, but everything is progressing normally now and he got to go home late Christmas Eve.

Friday night downtown with Philip and April was just so much fun. I've decided Fort Worth is very pretty when she's all decked out for the holidays. We ate dinner at Cantina Larado (EXCELLENT food), then arrived at Bass Hall just in time for A Christmas Carol, the Musical. It was great--very funny in parts, poignant in others, rousing musical numbers, and at the end there was snow coming down from the rafters of Bass Hall everywhere. (Luckily we were underneath a balcony and didn't walk out looking like we had giant dandruff flakes all over us). But the funnest part was being with Philip and April, and laughing and having such a great time. I hope we can continue to find things to do with them, separate from our family get-togethers.

Sunday, my mom and I drove to Fredericksburg and back in one day to pick up my Uncle Dave. It really didn't seem so bad. We had alot of Christmas music, crossword puzzles and some fierce games of 20 Questions that helped to make the time go by.

On Monday, we attended St. Rita's Christmas Eve 5:00 pm Mass, which is specifically for the kids, and is always so special because all the children are turned out in their finest Christmas outfits. They always have a Nativity Pageant, and lots of Carol singing. Gabriel lived up to his nickname, El Torito (the little bull), and I had to leave with him once. But Jav's Mom and sister helped me out with him. The funniest thing that ALMOST happened was that he almost turned out the lights in the sanctuary while Father Flores was giving the homily. Good Lord, we would've had to change parishes! And maybe even our names, Jav joked.

On to Christmas Eve dinner at Jav's parents with Sandra. This year we had tamales, which were delicious, especially with Tita's homemade guacamole and tortillas. My mouth is watering again just thinking about it. Unfortunately Gabriel was having a picky eating day and barely touched any of it, but didn't seem too concerned. We opened presents, with one of us on full alert chasing Gabriel around the house. The most memorable moment came when Tita showed me what she had been working on with Gabriel - he goes up to the large baby Jesus under her tree and gives him a kiss. For El Torito, this was an extremely gentle moment and pretty much brought me to tears. Once we got home, Jav and I stayed up watching the original version of A Christmas Carol with Reginald Owen. Jav had never seen any movie version of it. It was perfect because it ended right at midnight and left us feeling all Christmasy inside just before we passed out.

Christmas Day started with our little family opening the gifts Santa left. My husband gave me the dearest gift any one's ever given me - a photo album of our pets, with Stanley and Fred's picture on the first page as a memorial to the two of them. He truly is the most thoughtful person on the planet, and I am the luckiest person in the world to have him. Gabriel seemed really excited about his sandbox (although it had no sand yet), and we video taped him climbing in and out of it about 10 times. He also seemed excited about the gift from his Godparents, Keith and Christine, a miniature motorcycle, or at least he seemed to want to play with the boy in the picture on the box proudly riding it. Jav will have to put it together, hopefully sometime before he's too big to ride it.

On a sad note, Jav's sister Sandra lost her boxer, Reyna (Spanish for "queen"). She was 10, and had been battling a disease that had to do with her pituitary gland, but had been doing pretty well for the last 6 months with different medications. She woke up really sick and died at home with Sandra and her parents during the early afternoon. Sandra's doggies are her babies, and I really feel for her. It's tough to lose one anytime, but Christmas Day just seems so much harder of a day to deal with a tragedy. Luckily she still has her sweet pug, Bo, so they can lean on each other to get through this.

We headed for Philip and April's in Weatherford to spend Christmas evening with the two of them, Macy and Cade, and my Mom and Dad. We had an amazing dinner of prime rib, our traditional German dish of potatoes and bacon, cranberry salad, green bean casserole, hot bread, and a not-very-pretty but delicious chocolate-raspberry cheesecake that April made. Then we started a new tradition. Philip played the guitar and we all sang carols. It was a good mix of secular and religious, and half of them were for the kids to sing along with too. I have a great memory of holding Macy in my lap with my other arm around Cade singing "Santa Claus is coming to town" at the top of our lungs. Gabriel, being still too little to understand all of this, just wandered around with various toys. But he did seem very much fascinated by Uncle Philip playing the guitar. He stops to strum mine around 20 times a day at home, which has prompted me to try and remember anything I learned during my six months of lessons. I hope we'll do the carols every year. It helps to get some of the focus off opening presents and reminds us of what this holiday is all about after all.

But, of course, we then all opened gifts, which always leads to such excitement and laughter. My Dad surprised my Mom with a beautiful painting she had wanted from Bombay company. The kids, though, were the main focus of everything. Gabriel was such a trooper. He had to be totally exhausted, but never cried or fussed at all. He just started laying his head down on the carpet here and there, because, after all, it gets tiring carrying that big ole thing around all the time. And he showed off his newest, funniest trick of walking backwards over great distances without running into things. We're not exactly sure how he does it, but we think Henry had a hand in teaching him. We all went to bed that night with the satisfying feeling of full bellies, heads a little giddy from laughing so much, hearts full of love for our families and thankfulness to God for all that we have in our lives.

All in all, it really was a great Christmas.