A "GOOD" Family Christmas

On Sunday, December 20, at 3 pm we arrived at Great Grandma Good's house to celebrate the extended Good family Christmas. As we were arriving, Jeff & Stacy and their son Austin were leaving. Unfortunately, they had other plans Sunday evening (the Christmas event had been postponed from the day before due to the weather). We were also disappointed to see that Gayle Yeager and her four children Kirsten, Kelcey, Colton and Kaley weren't there since Gayle and her older girls had to work. :( Next, we realized that we had forgotten the three dozen oatmeal raisin cookies I had baked with Nonie for the party. They were sitting on the counter (where our keys and the gifts had been!!!) and we left without them in our rush to get out the door. So, Shawn promptly turned around and came back an hour later with them in hand. Other families arrived in the meantime, and everyone was kind enough to wait for Shawn to get back before starting the festivities. The boys immediately got out the train tracks and trains to play with. Grandma Good asked us if we had a set and offered us her big Thomas set, but I quickly declined. While it was a VERY gracious offer, I told her that it was important that she have toys that all the kids can play with when they come to her house. All the kids love that train set, so we couldn't take it. Here's Caleb playing with Jenavieve's chicken doll-baby while Joshua is in the background with the train set. Uncle Brian & Uncle Kevin are on the sofa.

Finally, Shawn arrived with the cookies in hand! The order of events was changed this year, which I thought actually turned out well. Grandma suggested that the kids open their gifts first. That way, they could play with their new toys while the adults continued with their activities. So, she lined up the piles of gifts and then told us parents that she has no idea what each child already has, and if she got something that we already have we could give it to the grandparents to have one there if the children like it or we could donate it to a worthy charity for children who are less fortunate. I thought that was a nice idea. She did great, though. The kids didn't have any of the items and they LOVED playing with them.

Here is Joshua with his stack of presents. He opened the first one, which was a magnetic set of construction tractors & bulldozers in a puzzle form. Then he opened some sort of connectors that you can build crazy construction sets with that have eye balls, etc. I can't remember the name of it offhand, but it looks really neat. We opened it and started playing the next day. It says for ages 3-5, and I would agree. Caleb can't quite put them together and even Joshua struggles a little with getting them snapped in, so I think he'll enjoy growing into that toy.

 Next, he opened a little race car wheel game where you try to get the car back to start to do laps. It already had batteries in it and he started playing immediately. He said "WOW!" He loves his "noisy" car wheel toy game.

Meanwhile, Grandma Good started helping Caleb open his gifts. One of the first things he opened was a set of balls attached to velcro froggy gloves. It looked like fun! Next he opened a Fisher Price scribble writer. He was enthralled since the batteries were already in it. We gave it to Phil (Shawn's cousin Ashley's fiancee) to open for us while we continued helping the kids. Ashley & Phil are pictured below with Ashley's mom Shari.

The kids continued to open their gifts. I could barely keep up with the camera, so why even try? I was enjoying watching them as much as anything.

 

Caleb LOVED his bucket. Each year Grandma Good gets the new little ones buckets for Christmas with their names on it. They are GREAT for storing balls and carrying around toys, etc. Caleb likes to play with Joshua's bucket at our house and knew right what to do with his new toy.

Joshua opened a jumping frog game and a new book while Caleb opened some blocks and some toy cars. Grandma Good is so thoughtful. She came down with tons of batteries, scissors and screwdrivers and told us to take what we need to put the kids toys together and make them work. That's great so that they can play right away. Joshua took his big red car to Uncle Kevin (which you can kind of see behind Caleb) and Uncle Kevin started helping open it and put the batteries in for us. I'm not great at that (plus there was a lot to do!) and Shawn tore his thumb nail off when cleaning the ice and I knew it was killing him, pain-wise.

The boys continued to open and enjoy their gifts. 

 

Caleb LOVED his new froggy book, and both boys have read it over and over again and made the 'ribbit' noises by pushing the buttons. Caleb loves books. He also got another little set of board books of Tonka trucks.

Joshua started playing with his remote-control car, which I think was the big hit of the night. He LOVES his car and actually understands how to use it. Daddy showed him the up and down arrows and explained that it moved the car forward and backward. Benjamin (Shawn's cousin Don & Jess's son) 'borrowed' Grant's (our nephew) car that was identical and played with it the whole night. We said Santa will have to get him one. Grandma Good thought Ben & Caleb would be too young for them, which I would have guessed that Joshua would be too, but he understood it and loved it! Those cars were going the rest of the night. You can tell Grandma Good is used to having kiddos around - when the cars would come toward her, she would simply pick up her foot (or whatever was in the way) and it would keep racing. The funniest thing was that the same frequency (or whatever) was used for both cars. So, if Joshua & Ben were too close to each other, one remote would work both cars. They would get a little confused as whatever button they were pushing wasn't making it do what it should. We'd laugh and laugh. They had a blast! Benjamin is very sharp and speaks very articulately. He's only a couple months older than Caleb, and it's fun to watch them all play together. Shawn is lucky to have cousins his age and such a nice family.

Here's Caleb opening a puzzle and posing for the camera.

After all the gifts were opened, we started the Christmas craft, which this year was making up plates of cookies with decorative bags. Would you believe I didn't get a single picture? Here's Caleb in front of the cookie table as we were setting up. Unfortunately, without even thinking about it, I gave him a cookie after Daddy had said no. I felt terrible about it. :( :( :( It's hard to say no to such a cute little face! But Daddy was right.

After we were done making our cookie craft, it was time for the food. It's always amazing. There is quite the spread of sandwiches, wraps, cookies (of course!), shrimp, crackers & cheese, ham balls, mini hot dogs, fruit, veggies and just about everything else you can think of. It was delicious and Joshua enjoyed the fruit salad the most while I think Caleb's favorites were the Bugles, cheese and ice cream cake, which Aunt Shari had made in honor of Phil's birthday, which had been the day before. We sang to him later that night. We sat with Alicia & Jordon at the dinner table. They're pictured below, and Don is standing in the background.

After dinner, we visited for a little while and then it was time to get in the circle for the 'now you have it, now you don't game.' Each year Grandma Good comes up with a new way of doing it, and I think she is so creative. This was the best year yet, I thought. She wraps presents for little ones and 'gag gifts' like toilet paper and paper towels and mixed nuts and then nicer gifts like bake ware and Bath & Body Works soaps and men's gifts to things like towels, tupperware filled with candy, etc. She gave out numbers and asked if the little kids wanted to be included. We included Joshua but said no thanks for Caleb since we didn't think he would understand the concept. She went around the room and we were asked to pick a gift off the table without touching it. She handed it to us, and sometimes she would say "wow this box is heavy" when it was really toilet paper, etc. You can see the stack of presents in the picture below.

Then we had the chance to exchange it when our numbers were called with the person who had the identical number. The numbers were colored red and green and sometimes red had final say and other times green had final say (so if someone didn't want to exchange and the other person did, the color decided who got their way). We laughed the whole way through it. At the end, there were extra gifts left over, so you could keep your wrapped, untouched gift or you could exchange it for one on the table. Then we went around the circle and opened them. Phil opened his first and he had a nice man's gift. I don't remember most of the others, but his fiancee Ashley got toilet paper (which Shawn was bummed about since he really wanted it...haaaa!!! He's so practical). She had actually traded with me, so I giggled when she opened it. We continued around the room - I think Poppy got cookie sheets he could give to Nonie, Kevin got some chocolate which I'm pretty sure he likes, and Brian & Gayle got some kids toys which was nice since both their kids played the game with us. Shawn got the paper towels, his second choice, Joshua got a festive set of towels and a 50-piece party set of poinsettia paper products to give to his momma, and I received a nice 9 x 13 pan with cake mixes inside. :) Here's a random "circle" picture shot and then one of Missy & Kevin sitting in the circle.

 

Then Grandma Good distributed the rest of the gifts on the table. She started with Phil, since it was his birthday, and then asked who had the next closest birthday, which was Jordon who just celebrated in November, followed by Kevin who's birthday is coming up in January. Next she asked who had the closest anniversary, and it ended up being us (it's coming on March 1). We opened the box with the nice smelling hand soaps, my favorite. Jess also got one, and I don't remember what was called for that. The last ones were for shoe sizes - the biggest being Uncle Jim and the smallest being Shawn's youngest sister Hilary.

Then Grandma Good opened her gifts from all of us. The next generation down went together and got her an iPod, but she doesn't have a computer. We offered to have her come here and Shawn would set it up for her, so she's coming Christmas Eve. We got her an iTunes gift card to go with it, along with a devotional of pastors in the Lancaster County area. Great Grandpa Good had been an author in one years ago before he passed, and this was the latest edition of it. She also received a beautiful wreath, tickets to shows, a homemade ornament and basket of goodies, and gift cards to her favorite restaurants, etc. She then handed out envelopes, which included money for our kids' college savings account. She is so generous! We are extremely thankful.

 

We continued to visit for a little while and Aunt Shari put a bow on Joshua's head. Here's Ben standing next to the Bean. We laughed and chatted and caught up and then before we knew it, it was getting late and kids had to get to bed for school the next day and parents had to get to bed for work the next morning (it was strange to have it on a Sunday night!). So, we said our thanks, cleaned up, and headed home from one of our favorite Christmas gatherings of the year. It is always a fun time to get together with family, play games, eat, chat, laugh, etc.. The kids enjoy it and so do the adults. I think Joshua's expression captures the feeling of the evening...

Thank you, Grandma Good, for including us in this extended family event. May you be blessed this Christmas even with missing Grandpa Good as we all do. And to all a "GOOD" night!