Christmas in Omaha

I'm going to work on this post as we go.

We celebrated Christmas in Omaha this year. And ... we drove there. We left Monday, the 20th after work and drove straight through, arriving in Omaha Tuesday afternoon. The trip went somewhat smoothly, although Ben had to do most of the driving. Mattie required Mama to be close. It was hard 23 hours), but not too bad. Tuesday we ordered pizza and hung out at Oma's house, where we stayed. All-in-all, it was a good start to the trip.

Wednesday we went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch with Oma when she was off work and I fell in the parking lot on my way in - while I was holding Mattie. The baby was fine, but I sacrificed y left leg in the fall and ended up with a very painful, deep bruise. The whole thing traumatized me to a certain degree - falling with my baby, and I ended up with a good deal of pain for a while. Even so, it was a nice day with Oma. That night we went to a bar with all my siblings while Oma watched the girls. It was the first night we'd been out in a while, and it was a lot of fun. Jarrod had a bit too much, though, and was sick that night at home. It was a lot of fun, though, and we played darts and hung out.

Thursday we got a hitch installed on the van (so we could bring some furniture back to New York), and hung out with Oma. That night we headed to Lincoln to spend the night with Grandpa and spend Christmas Eve. We had a big dinner and played Euchre that night. Grandpa has cats, though, and Ben and I both had to deal with that. We made it through, though, and Christmas Eve was a long lazy day with a lot of food and presents. The girls had a blast, and Grandpa had some good quality time with them. Thursday night we left Grandpa's with the plan of going to Midnight Mass, but the girls had had it and we ended up skipping it. We played Santa for the first time, and filled up the tree. We also played games with everyone and had a great time.

Christmas morning, Celia woke up excited, although we think she was barely aware of why she was excited. We took her to the tree, and she had a lot of fun with presents. The problem was that she had a good many presents and every time she opened one she wanted to stop and play with the toys. This meant that presents took 2 hours. Oma made a big Christmas breakfast and we went to 12:30 mass at MOQ, where we were married. We saw Uncle John and his family there and really enjoyed mass. When we got back to Oma's, we exchanged Christmas presents with the siblings. The rest of Chirstmas was a lazy day. Oma served French dip subs and we ate and played games all day. It was great!

Sunday we packed up and went to the Fuchs family Christmas in Columbus. More later ...

Decorating the Christmas Tree

We decorated the Christmas tree today and brought out the rest of the decorations, including the advent wreath. The first time we lit the advent candles, Celia saw the flame and said, "Wow!" It's a lot of fun, and Auntie Allison helped us. Now it finally feels like Christmas is coming!

Christmas in Missouri

For Christmas Eve and Christmas Day this year, we were in Missouri with the Swobodas. We were able to decorate the tree with Cecilia, which was great fun - although she had no clue what was going on. She really just wanted to eat the ornaments.


On Christmas Eve, we went and saw Ben's grandma and introduced her to Cecilia. She kept asking how old she was and what her name was, which was to be expected. However, near the end of the visit, she called her Cecilia, which was wonderful to hear. They got along just beautifully, and we had a happy visit together.

Later in the day we went to see Becky sing at Elliott and Becky's church. Cecilia was pretty god throughout and was adored by all - per usual. That evening we bravely took little Cecilia Jo to midnight mass. It was beautiful this year, and Cecilia slept through the whole thing. Poor baby was really tired, even with a late nap. She was a little fussy the next day from being tired. We're not sure if we'll take her (or another baby) to midnight mass again, but it turned out pretty well and we really enjoyed sharing that mass with her, even if she was sleeping. There's something special about the night-time masses, Midnight Mass and Easter Vigil. Maybe it's the sense of anticipation or maybe it's the quiet. Whatever it is, I love those masses, and hopefully we'll be able to continue to bring our children.

On Christmas morning, we got ourselves up and out of bed, and then Cecilia opened her presents with Mommy, Daddy, Na-naw, and Paw-paw. She really doesn't enjoy wrapping paper as much as we had hoped, but she does like bows. We also opened gifts that were sent from Nebraska. Afterward, we ate Christmas breakfast, Ben's favorite meal of the year. Here are the 6 videos from that morning :).







Later in the day, Uncle Elliott, Aunt Becky, Uncle Nick, and Aunt Ashley came over and we all opened presents together. After the baby was in bed, we hung out and played games (not to say the baby didn't wake up ...). It was a wonderful Christmas with Cecilia. We missed everyone who wasn't there, but we were grateful for the people we did have with us. As Tiny Tim says, "God bless us, everyone!"