Christmas Catching Up

Dad’s airborne, flying back to Victoria as I type this. With my brief hospitalization and Dad visiting, I really didn’t recap Christmas, so here goes.

Christmas morning was very normal, with the addition of Dad. The kids let us sleep until after seven, which was welcome. But they were raring to go and ready to open their stockings.

Miranda had sewed a stocking for Grandpa before he arrived, so Santa had a goodie or two for him as well.

There were lots of presents to open, but they waited until everyone had had some breakfast and had opened cards.

Afterwards, we had a Skype call with Colin and Carol, and then a FaceTime call with Stephanie, who was at work at the hospital on Christmas (and Boxing Day, too). Little did I realize that I would also be at a hospital the next day… Miranda spent most of the day reading her giant X-Men comic book from Grandpa, and Ian dove into building his undersea explorers Lego set, also from Grandpa.

Tammy and I got busy on making dinner. Turkey, homemade stuffing, potatoes, corn, yams, brussel sprouts, and homemade buns.

Some of the Christmas cake was sacrificed so that Tammy could make a delicious trifle.

Boxing Day was a writeoff, on a few levels. Of course, I was in the hospital, and everybody else went to Market Mall, but there was nary a parking spot to be found, so they left again. Miranda and Ian played Apples to Apples (our new Christmas game) and Boggle with Grandpa while I was unavailable. When I got home, we had dinner (eggs, potatoes and ham) and then watched Elf.

On the 27th, we decided not to go skiing, as my leg was still sore, and a bit of a wildcard. We did go to Crossiron Mills mall in the afternoon. The kids wanted to go to the Indigo Books there, and I needed to pick up my prescription for my anti inflammatories. The mall was a zoo, and Dad was tuckered out by the time we made it all the way around. We had some take and bake pizza and then watched Star Wars the Force Awakens (Dad hadn’t seen it yet).

Today, Dad was still tired, and we had a low-key day. We did go to the library and Sobey’s, but most of the day was around the house. I cut Ian’s hair (which we took a timelapse of, of course) and Dad got some sleep while he claimed he was reading.

We forgot to use our Christmas crackers on Christmas, so we had them at dinner tonight for Grandpa’s sendoff meal: homemade split pea soup and baking powder biscuits, along with a homemade gingerbread cake.

All in all, it was a good visit. The snow disrupted some plans, and my leg disrupted some others, but it was still good. Tomorrow we take down the Christmas decorations, because Miranda’s birthday is right around the corner.