#2a) christmas eve

just some pics i have from christmas eve. nothing exciting. don't get excited. if you get excited and thus disappointed, don't blame me. i'm not to blame in any case.


a pretty, mudsy looking preshus in her styleesh new do.

and speshul displays her mudsiness and new do which elizabeth is happy to pull.

perogy eaters.

now is when i started taking test pictures to try different lighting scenarios. this is not a time for bethany to say "laura likes taking pictures of amy more than me" because it simply isn't true. not true!

speshul's christmas toque was hiding out in grampa and rene's closet. she made do with my coon skin, heather's green scarf and sarah's pink coat. frankly i don't think she did her duty in the ugly department, but then she and preshus never look hideous in their toques.

and for some reason i never took another picture. we caroled at grampa and renee's. auntie heather and uncle dennis were there too and auntie heather had suggested that we come singing along the side of the house to the balcony doors, which of course made us want to do the opposite. very christmassy of us. but we did it anyways, except for ann because their deck was icy. we were welcomed in and we sat around and sang lots of christmas hymns to grandpa. he is much littler now and bent over. he was wearing a handsome grey sweater. during silent night grampa closed his eyes and sang along with us. auntie heather, who was beside me, was sniffling and crying while she sang. auntie heather had the yummiest ginger bread cookies, amongst other goodies for everyone. i took some and wrapped it in a napkin and amy obligingly put it in her pocket (only because well, it was christmash). i found it there the next day--my sugar day. we also sang to kathy kelly after a bit of an icy goose chase looking around the different buildings in her complex. and then we sang to little sister walker who was in a lot of pain--i think she just had an operation. she didn't know it was us until after most of us had left but then became quite chipper. after that we sang to ann's friends who lived at the bottom of a steep snowy path, which suprisingly was not icy.

candle ceremony at sarah's. i sat on the ground with michealah and natalie on my lap at first. after a while natalie went to sit on her dad leaving me with only one bony bum to deal with. :) mom sang her beautiful song. and then because we were right beside dad, i got the candle first. i stumbled through something that weakly described how i feel at christmas time and passed it to mom who has a beautiful testimony--then was heather. her's was kind of funny because she was talking about how at this time of year she feels connected to the generations of women before her in her family, and then she would go off into genealogy side bars of unrelated things, then back to her point and then off again. she had the candle a long time and dennis, who was beside her on the couch, had his head lolled back and was breathing deeply with his eyes closed. when she was finished, his head popped up and he asked in his soft dennis voice, "are you finished?" haha.

afterwards we sat around and talked for a while and evan read our two books (no fun on christmash! --by me and bethany and amy and chuck the duck--by me and sarah) in a most gratifying manner. evan is a good person to show those things to. he has a good appreciation for our efforts and sees the funny details.

well those are all the details i care to relate except to say that i was the last one in bed because of a few last minute wrapping projects, but that speshul and preshus were still awake and talking when i came to bed so it felt less lonely.