Christmas Highlights!

Ok... now that Christmas, my birthday and New Year's are all over and done with, here's my "Highlight Reel"!

Let's start with Christmas Eve.

The church I attend has a Candlelight Christmas Eve Service every year, and I have been a part of it for every year since 2001 except last year (when they tried something very different which was a huge flop! LOL!) Every other year the program has been put together by a very good friend of mine, Lee-Ann, who has incredible musical talent as well as organizational talent! She always puts together a program that really speaks to the reason behind Christmas with a nice blend of traditional carols combined with newer, not so traditional songs and medleys. Anytime Lee-Ann asks me to perform in one of her programs, I jump at the chance, because I know it will be a lot of fun! This year was no different! Except... for some strange reason, we didn't start practicing for this until the first weekend in December... which meant 3 practises for an hour long program! That's INSANE! There was a LOT of music to learn, as even though we were singing a lot of traditional carols, the arrangements definitely were NOT traditional! LOL!

We worked very hard and on the 17th, decided we needed an extra practise (we sounded HORRIBLE!) and we set the last practise for Friday, the 23rd. Good thing we did! Anyway, to make a long story shorter (This IS supposed to be the HIGHLIGHTS...lol!) The service went without a hitch Christmas Eve and everyone who attended seemed to really enjoy it.

Afterwards we went home and opened our presents. The girls were so excited! Kids really make Christmas fun! My girls had so much fun opening their gifts! I had fun watching them and my wife! I know they had fun watching me open mine! LOL!

Here is a partial listing of my gifts this year:

For Christmas...
A Canon Powershot S2 1S digital camera! (WHOO HOO!)
Lots of chocolate! :-)
A hot water bottle (I STILL can't get over that one!!!!!)
A zip-up hooded sweatshirt
A battery charger for the camera
and a series of 3 "Historical Fiction" books about King Arthur!

For my birthday...
A limited edition print of a painting of a steam locomotive that is on display in my town. The proceeds for the sale of these prints goes towards the restoration of this locomotive.
More books - this time Fantasy novels
And a really nice dark burgundy corduroy shirt!

Not a bad haul indeed! LOL! And that was Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day we went to church in the morning, then came home and relaxed for the rest of the day, which was a good thing, because the rest of our week didn't see much relaxing at all!

Boxing Day we drove to my brother's place, about an hour away, and celebrated Christmas with my family. Definitely no relaxing going on there! Total chaos! My brother has 5 boys, and they were all running at FULL VOLUME ALL DAY!!!!! I had one heck of a headache when we finally left!

Tuesday we went to my parent's place (an hour the OTHER way) and celebrated my birthday (a day early).

Wednesday was my birthday, and we spent the day shopping and spending more money! LOL! (Sorry, Burf, no "lady" jumping out of my cake! LOL!) As for my age? I'm 18 years old! With 20 years of experience at it! You do the math!

Thursday we drove another hour to my wife's parent's place for the day. I guess I did some relaxing there... it was pretty quiet compared to my brother's!

Friday, we did some more shopping and rested for the evening.

New Year's Eve we drove 2.5 hours (should have been just over 1) in the nastiest weather possible to my wife's sister's place in Toronto and spent the day there. For some reason, everytime we go to their house in winter, the weather is bad! I wish they would plan things better!!! LOL! Got home after midnight and crashed into bed!

New Year's Day... slept until 1:00 pm (yes.. PM!) and didn't get out of bed until 3:30 PM!!! LOL! Now THAT was more like it!!! Basically wasted the day! Oh well... got some quality reading in!

Monday was clean up day because Tuesday was back-to-work day for both my wife and myself. I may have mentioned this before, my wife has an in-home daycare business, so the main room had to be clean for the little kiddies arrival early Tuesday morning. Monday night we went as a family to see "The Chronicles of Narnia", and we all gave it 2 thumbs WAY up! It's a must see as far as I'm concerned!

Wow... so much for brief highlights! But then, if I told you EVERYTHING we did... it would take a week! LOL!

Have a very Safe, Prosperous Happy New Year!