Christmas in The Great "Brown" North.

Okay, you all know I live in Minnesota. You would think that we'd have some of that beautiful, fluffy white stuff, wouldn't you? Alas, but no, we spent another Christmas without snow. Now I'm sure many people are happy about this occurance, but I'm not one of them. Damn Global Warming. I'm sure this is the culprit. Part of the reason, I choose to live here is because I LOVE the change of seasons, and a season to me includes snow! Oh, I will admit that it is nice to not have to deal with all the snowboots, snowpants, hats and mittens that go along with the snow and two preschoolers, but we're missing out on a lot too. NO WORRIES though...as we have LOTS of winter left and I feel pretty confident in saying that we'll probably get dumped on a few times yet.

Back to our Christmas...due to no snow, our front yard looked like this on Christmas Day:

rather than this (note this is our old house):

All in all, we had a very nice Christmas. We celebrated on Saturday, the 23rd with my family because the girls' church school Christmas program was on Christmas Eve night. We gathered at my aunt & uncle's home for dinner, which was too much! We were all stuffed. All the kids loved opening a few presents and playing together.

On Christmas Eve, I spent some of the day wrapping presents and then it was time to get ready for the program. The girls were dressed so cute and were so excited to be singing and reciting. They had been practicing "Joy to the World" and "Little Jesus in the Manger". We got there, brought them to their room, and then found a place to sit. They walked in with their class and then sat with their teacher. BUT, no singing from Lindsey and Sydney were to be heard because THIS happened:


Poor things...people were even taking pictures of them! It was pretty cute. We carried them out and they didn't wake up until we got to the car. After that, it was over to Grandma & Grandpa's for a lite supper of appetizers and some visiting. We left about 8 p.m. and got home and into bed. Sleep came very quickly for L & S.

Christmas morning was so magical! I heard Sydney and Lindsey coming up the stairs around 7 a.m. and Sydney was saying,

"Momma, I don't think Santa came to our house. I didn't hear the reindeer on the roof and we don't have a chimney!"

I told them that I'm sure he came and they better go check their stockings. They ran up the stairs and then:

"He came! He came! There's things in our stockings!"

Brice had driven down the night before so he was able to spend time with us that morning. The girls opened their Santa gifts first while we waited for Brice to wake up. I whipped up a wonderful coffeecake that I make every Christmas morning. And we proceeded to jump into the gifts. We had to rush in order to make it to church by 10 a.m. I popped the Breakfast Casserole in the oven before we left and Brice took it out on time. Then my mom & dad and Grandma came over after church to spend some time playing with the girls and eating brunch. Lindsey took a nap and Sydney & I watched a movie. Later, we went over to my brother's house, hung out and ate more. Just what we needed! We came home and watched Rudolph. A fine ending to a perfect day.

I have a few pics of the girls and our Christmas here. Check them out! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday as well. Ours isn't quite over. We'll be traveling to Dh's family this weekend for some more food, visiting and fun.

Seasons Greetings from Our Home to Yours!