Christmas at the Watsons, with the Watsons. Lots of em.

So Christmas came and went, and it has left a fury of toys, boxes, and great memories in its wake. We had an amazing time this year. Christmas eve was kinda nuts, as it well should be. I went to church to serve at 5, and then sat in at the service at 6:30. Chris LIED to me and told me that if I went up on stage when they asked for volunteers, I would win a prize. I am a sucker for prizes, so up I went. Chris had gone to the 5:00 service with our friends so he already knew that the going-up-to-volunteer situation did not involve any kind of prize, in fact it just involved making a fool out of yourself in front of a multitude of folks dressed in their Christmas Eve Best singing a verse of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas'. If it hadn't been for a very sweet high school student who 'sang' with me (I did NOT sing, only read my verse) I surely woulda punched my husband as soon as I got off the stage.

After church, we came home, fed ourselves and the kids, bathed everyone, and put the babies to bed. And then that's when craziness showed up. We were expecting about 50 people the next day (mostly all Watsons, of all ages ranging from 9 months old to 76ish) and the house was not that clean. Plus we hadn't wrapped any presents or anything yet. Not that we had too many presents to wrap (thanks again Dave Ramsey and Financial Peace University...) After we wrapped the presents, and went around the house (at Lily and Sungu's grubby hands level) with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (Amazing by the way!) We ended up being in bed by 12:30am, tired, but excited for the next day.

The fun started at about 5am, when Topher woke me up (he still wakes up anytime between 2 and 5am. I can't fight him anymore!). Fortunately we went back to bed, only to be woken up by Lily at about 6:30sh. Awesome. After a little more downtime on the living room floor, I decided it was time to get the day rolling, by making the turkey. Actually, it was my first turkey ever. And it turned out pretty well if I do say so myself! It was not burned, and it was not dry. Thank you Reynolds Oven Bags! Four hours in the oven, and I never had to check on it, or baste it or anything. So great.

We opened our presents and stockings with the kids at 8am. Then Wes and Kim came by at 9am, as did Robert and Lindsay and Gabe, so that we could have our 'private' gift exchange. The 40 other Watsons showed up at 10am. People started clearing out at about 12pm. Then we had our intimate lunch for 18 at 1pm. And our last guests left at about 4pm.

A great day full of fun, family, and food. And all to celebrate the birth of Jesus! It doesn't get any better than that! Oh yeah, and our Christmas miracle for this year was that we got a 'new' (for us) washing machine from Chris' cousin who is moving to Payson for the year! Ours really sucks cause it doesn't drain or spin properly, but our dryer is amazing. Chris' cousin had been stressed about where to store their washer and dryer and when we heard their complaint, all our prayers were answered! Thank you Jesus for showing up and giving us gifts on your birthday.