Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to All! We had a great Christmas in our new house. We hosted Christmas Eve this year, as my sister-in-law has been waiting with baited breath to "turn Christmas Eve over" to Someone Else.

Steve, Ginger, Joshua, Brooke, Joshua's girlfriend Isabelle, and Morgan in their Christmas PJs on Christmas morning. (No, Isabelle didn't spend the night here - Joshua went and picked her up after she finished opening gifts at her house - wearing the PJs she opened at our house the night before was a requirement.)

We went to church on Christmas Eve, then back to our house for lasagna, spaghetti, garlic bread, salad, and Italian Hazelnut Creme Cassata for dessert. I changed the cake recipe just a wee bit - I omitted the raspberry jam (for Steve, who hates raspberries) and hazelnuts on top (for my mother-in-law, who can't eat nuts). Even with the omissions, the dessert was delicious! Unfortunately (or, per usual) I didn't get any pictures of Christmas Eve.

For a slight twist this year, and totally unplanned by me, Steve did most of the gift choosing and buying. And the girls did most of the wrapping. I wrapped perhaps four gifts, total. I liked this! I hate to shop. And wrap!

Steve is always the hardest one for me to buy for. He never gives hints as to what he wants. Or either he mentions things that I couldn't possibly buy - like a Cessna or a small tropical island. And NO MATTER WHAT, he always guesses his presents. Like the time I bought him shoes and wrapped them in a computer box with two cinder blocks. Yes, he guessed it was shoes. No, he doesn't peek. But he just always seems to KNOW.

But this year, I was able to get him something he had asked for - a big TV. We have an old "fat" TV. Steve had the entertainment center in our new house, though, built for his Future TV - a 50" flat screen plasma TV. I was shocked when I looked at the sticker price on these monstrosities and knew there was no way I would be able to get him one. But, thanks to a good sale and 18 months interest free financing (and a new job), I finagled a way to buy his biggest ever wish.

However, it would spoil the surprise to simply wrap it and put it under the tree. And he would be suspicious if he didn't have anything to open. So, while picking up some driving gloves at Bass Pro Shop that he mentioned wanting, I got an idea. "What is the smallest amount you can put on a gift card?" I asked the clerk. She didn't know and thought that was the strangest question. I explained what I had in mind and she got with the game. "Let's try $0.05," she said! And it went through! I write on the gift card "$200" and wrap it up. I also told Morgan if her dad opened it and said, "Oh, how nice!" we'd know he was completely disappointed (which was what I was hoping).

Christmas morning, he opened his gifts from the kids. Then his gloves. Then the gift card. "Oh, how nice," he said. "I can buy lots of stuff with this." (He is very gracious, even when thoroughly disappointed.) Morgan is holding her side and trying to stop the laughter that is bubbling inside. "Hey. Did you open your red box?" I ask Steve. No, of course he didn't. The kids got right into the game, lifting up their empty boxes and searching through the wrappings. "Brooke, you didn't leave it in the guest room, did you?" She admitted she probably had, so Steve and all his entourage trek to the guest room. "It'll be on the shelf," I say. He gets to the guest room, opens the closet, looks up on the shelf, then looks down....

Do you see the look on this man's face? Do I need to tell you that when he ripped off the paper (he knew what was in it by the size of the box) that he assuredly did NOT say, "Oh, how nice?" And, to my great delight, he never found out, so it was TRULY a surprise!

Steve has worked so hard the past two years and has given so much. The best gift *I* received was watching my wonderful, darling husband receive his Christmas Wish.