Merry Christmas!

We had a really nice Christmas yesterday! We went to Christmas Eve service at 7:30, which ended up being a lot longer than I remember and was definitely too late for our little Meredith, but she was still a trooper. (I especially like the later service over the earlier kids service...I guess because there are just so many kids at the early service- haha!) Next year we'll have to reconsider which service we attend. Chris' Grandmother spent the night with us, which was nice and Meredith was really excited to have her Grandma here. After we got home from church, Meredith woke up long enough to put out some cookies for Santa and some carrots for the reindeer, then without any fuss went straight to bed. We stayed up a bit longer to get her haul downstairs by the tree, but it really wasn't too bad. I slept terribly though, guess I kept thinking Meredith would wake up early, then I'd wonder if grandma was warm enough, then the baby would kick, then I'd start listing things in my head to be sure I did in the morning, etc etc. I was still the first one up to do important things like retrieve the carrots from the patio and start the coffee! Meredith slept until about 8am and then it was present time! She was so sweet while opening her gifts- her favorite was her Barbie house that Chris found for a steal on craigslist (it's a little dated, but it was super cheap and she is still thrilled with it!). Chris and I had fully agreed that we would not exchange gifts, mostly because we don't need to add any additonal stress to a pretty stressful season and we didn't need to spend any more money. Well, Meredith was super sweet and asked where our presents were because we could take turns opening them :) Aw, at least it wasn't ALL about her! I think we did go a little overboard this year, but we also know it's her last Christmas as an only child and she's at the age where we can buy a lot of not too expensive stuff. Not sure how long that will last, but it was still fun!

Then we packed up and headed over to Chris' step-sister's house for the Elliott Christmas. It is fun, but pretty chaotic since there are lots of kids. I also got a nice Christmas present while we were over there- a phone call from Hillary & Joey! It was so great to talk with them and sounds like they were able to celebrate Christmas with some of the other Azerbaijan Peace Corps volunteers. I was totally fine until Meredith got on the phone with them and then the emotions took over!! Miss them a lot!

Then we headed over to my Mom & Dad's house in the evening. My Aunt Marcia & Uncle Les were actually in town on their way back to Michigan from a trip to New Orleans, so that was a nice treat too! Allison & Matt were there too and we had a nice dinner and just enjoyed eachothers company. We'll do our big Christmas when Elizabeth, Chris, Abby & Jessie get here on Tuesday. We actually left when it started to snow last night and it basically snowed all night until today around noon or so. I think we ended up with a good 6" of snow, so of course we are basically snowed in! It's the first time Raleigh has had snow on Christmas in over 60 years! We've enjoyed a lazy snow day!