Celebration!

Hey guess what? Its almost Christmas! Over the last week or so I've been baking cookies and thinking about my mom baking cookies and I started feeling a little nostalgic, realizing I'm stepping into my mom's shoes and my kids are following right behind me. Only my mom's shoes are pretty big (in this analogy, of course, because her feet aren't very big) and I'm not sure I could ever fill them... Ok, back on track, here.

Today I called Mom and asked her if we could come over for supper, we'll bring food. She said not to bring food, bring the kids and come on over, so we did. And we had a celebration party! To celebrate family, and almost-Christmas, and cookies and playing and everything.

When we were driving up I thought about how Mom usually got out the sheet music and played songs for us when we were kids. Once a year my mom played the piano. Way back when we were little and celebrating Christmas at the Community Center in Argyle, and later on the electric keyboard at the kitchen table. And guess what? Tonight. She did it again, and I love that she did that, continued the tradition, and when the evening was almost over she plugged in that little keyboard, pulled out the music and gave us all sleigh bells to ring while we sang Jingle Bells. Mom and Dad have good voices, but I'm sure I was way off-key, and the kids were all over the place. Add some bells to the mix (E was hitting those bells as hard as he could while Shell delicately tapped each note) and it was quite the joyful noise!

There was a moment tonight when Mom and Dad were actually competing for time with the kids. You're taking them to the workshop? I needed them to help with the cookies! It all worked out, they spent time with Grandpa making wheels for a wooden car, and time with Grandma making and decorating sugar cookies. All the while, Elijah was eating chex mix and cookie dough and whatever else he could get his hands on. It was a laughing, shouting, awesome good time. I wouldn't trade those memories for anything.