It's a long one!

Merry Christmas to all! I must say that this Christmas I've not felt as jolly as usual. I think it might be the pregnancy hormones or nothing going the way I want it to but my mood and circumstances have improved in the last few days, making it a very Merry Christmas indeed.
I'm finally really thankful that I didn't fly to my sister's graduation, I wouldn't have made it home until Christmas day! Getting stuck in LA, even with my dad and mom and sisters didn't sound like much fun. Christmas Eve we set out cookies for Santa. The kiddos helped make them and were very excited to go to bed on Christmas Eve night. Erik gave me my Christmas gift after the kids went to bed and even installed it, I got a chandelier for our bedroom. Only after he installed it did we discover that we only had two light bulbs to put in it (that is without stealing from other light fixtures in the house) but it looks really cool. I thought that he was planning on getting this for me but I had no idea when he was going to get it because I've been at Home Depot with him everytime we've been up there, apparently one time when I took Hannah to the bathroom he rushed through, bought it and hid it in the suburban all before we got back!
Ivan was very excited to get a big boy bike for Christmas along with a "mater" helmet. And Clayton was excited to get two little board books and his little wooden chair we made him and Hannah was thrilled to get a violin. It will be hard to only allow her to play it when we can help her, but she loves it!
My parents' flight to Seattle from LA was cancelled on Monday and they couldn't get a flight till Christmas so I tried to convince them that they could just drive up to our house and spend Christmas with us but they prefered to wait and not make the long drive. Bummer, someday maybe I'll get to spend Christmas morning with my family again.
Erik's parents lost power at their house on Monday morning and they didn't want to leave and come to the warmth of our house either. Then they weren't sure that they wanted us to come and share in the cold on Christmas day either, but we decided that we were coming anyway and we got here about 3:30pm and the power came on at 6pm. We were very glad for that and decided to stay all weekend instead of just the night. I was starting to think that we were "abandoned" by family at Christmas because no one wanted to spend it with us! It just doesn't feel like Christmas without a bunch of family around.
I think this Christmas with our kiddos has turned out to be the best yet because the kid's actually looked forward to it with anticipation and giving them gifts that they wanted and were excited about was really fun. Makes me think of that verse in the New Testement that says something about if you know how to give good gifts to your children how much more does God know how (and want!) to give gifts to you! I know that's not word for word but I don't have a Bible near me at this moment.
Merry, Merry Christmas!