After the luncheon, we spent the afternoon with LL's family, and then went to Christmas Eve Candlelight service. In our bulletin it said the service started at 7:00pm, and I was sooooo proud of us becuase we were there by 6:30! (If you know the Reitz's, that in itself is a small miracle!) Well, I was proud of us until we got to the front doors of church and saw that it was completely full and the sign out front said "Christmas Eve service 6:00"! I was SO disappointed! They must have printed it wrong in the bulletin and we missed the announcement changing it! So LL and I looked at each other and decided it was Christmas, we were dressed and ready, and we were going to church! So we went to another church that had a service starting at 7:00pm. It was a lessons and carols candlelight service, and it was very nice, even if we felt a little awkward just showing up!
Christmas day we went back to the farm for a celebration with LL's entire family. It has the first time in a number of years that LL and all of his siblings were able to be home at the same time, and this year was even more speical because of all of the little people celebrating with us! Christmas morning before we went to the farm Collette modeled her "Baby's First Christmas" outfit; a gift from one of LL's clients. Cute, huh?
And here she is at the Christmas celebration-- wearing her smocked dress and patent leather shoes! She had a nice big hair bow but she lost it before the pictures. A true Southern Belle in the making, don't you think? :o)
And Collette got a very.... interesting Christmas present! We got to LL's parent's house and there was a dog crate under the tree. He said to me, "that's a very special present for Collette! Go check it out!" Well, I looked at the tree and you will never guess what I saw. I don't even have a picture of the moment because I was in too much shock and LL was videotaping, but here is her present:
Yup. That's a pig. A pot-bellied pig to be exact. Oh, the perils of being married to a Veterinarian! Apparently a client of his needed to find a new home for the pig, and LL decided on the spur of the moment it would be a good present for Collette! I was really, REALLY worried he was going to say that this was an indoor pig, but luckily he isn't. He has a very nice home in his own little barn by our house.
After I got over the shock of the Christmas pig, we had a great day! It was really fun with all of the cousins. Here are some pictures of the festivities. The red-heads are Isaac and Tabby, LL's brother Andy's kids. The two super-blondies are Oliver and Karen, his brother Nick's kids. And the little girl with the light brown hair is Autumn, his sister Gwen's daughter. They are 3, almost 3, 2, 1, and 1-- Collette is going to have LOTS of fun playing with them all next Christmas! And there will be a new little one, too-- Nick and Niki are due to have a baby boy in a couple of weeks!
Andy offered to play "horsie" for all of the cousins-- a few seconds later they all toppled off! We started the day off with lots of tears, but they dried up pretty quickly. lol
I was even able to surprise LL for Christmas this year! Every year we set price limits for our presents for each other, and every year he finds a way around the price limit and does something extravagant and unnecessary (but very nice). Well, I have had several ideas of presents fall through in the past, so this year I decided that I was going to make up for it and get him something he really wanted. We didn't have any channels for our TV until this past year--when he was in vet school we just had an antenna and got two channels, but fuzzy. And the TV we have is ancient-- discarded by one of my brothers frat buddies YEARS ago because the casing was cracked and the colors were bad. It was my TV when I was single and after we got married. Once LL graduated and we moved back, we moved up it the world and got cable TV! However, the TV sustained more damage during the move to PA, and then it started making this weird high-pitched noise about half the time it was on. Many of our friends had recently gotten new LCD TVs, and LL would always comment about how nice they were, so I decided to get him one for Christmas. I found a great deal, including free shipping, and had it shipped to by BIL Andy's house. When he brought it wrapped to the farm, labeled "to the little redhead" LL just assumed it was for his kids! I finally got him!
Happy with the new TV up and running:
A tired girl (or two!) on Christmas night:
Merry Christmas!
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