Christmas with the Sheldons

Whenever we pull the suitcases out to go on vacation, our cats begin the process of working through anxiety attacks. As soon as the luggage comes out, all three cats either try to jump in the suitcases or just plop themselves down on top of the suitcases. In the picture below, they decided to be less aggressive and just lay beside one of my bags before we left to visit Aimee's family up in North Branch, MN, and then my family in Mason City, IA.


We very much enjoyed spending Christmas at my parents' house. Both Mom and Dad still do most of the meal preparation while us kids help with setting the table and loading the dishwasher. Behind Mom in the picture below are the tupperware containers filled with all sorts of Christmas goodies that she and Dad had made before we all arrived.


My sister-in-law Di has continued her tradition of making her delicious cinnamon rolls for all of us. My niece Hannah and nephew Caleb are helping her pound the dough in the picture below.


One of the many things I enjoy about when the whole family gets together is eating every lunch and supper together. The dining room we are eating in used to be the dining room and the kitchen before my parents added a new larger kitchen and a spare bedroom onto their house several years ago. Also of note, I can't help but talk about the man praying in the picture above Aimee. As I was growing up, I thought this guy's name was Grace Enstrom. However, I learned sometime when I was in high school or college that the name of the picture is called "Grace" and that it was painted by someone with the last name of Enstrom. Yes, I am a bit of a slow learner!


As many of you know, games are a part of every Sheldon family get together; and Christmas is definitely not an exception. I think my Dad, my brother Chris, my brother Brad, and I were playing pinochle in the picture below (although it looks like Chris may need to go back to the "special" kids' home!).


Hannah and Caleb have also tried their hand at playing cards, and I'm sure it will only be a couple of more years before they are taught how to play pinochle.


Before we open presents every year, we read through the Christmas story found in Luke. We each read one paragraph and pass the Bible to the next person. After that, we sang Mom's favorite Christmas carol (Silent Night) this year and then began handing out the stockings and then opening presents.


I think Hannah is looking for gold in her stocking in the picture below!

Since I was the youngest in the family growing up, I was always the one who got picked to play Santa (dig the presents out from under the tree and hand them to each person). My family opens presents in rounds. After each person has a present to unwrap, everyone unwraps at once and then we go around and show everyone what we received. And this continues one round at a time until all of the presents are unwrapped. This year, Hannah and Caleb helped me pass out the presents. You may have to look closely in the picture below as Caleb is digging under the tree for some presents all of the way back against the wall.

My Dad and his brothers and sisters had one gag gift that got passed from one person to the next every year at Christmas. That tradition has now carried over to our family in the form of a green clay mouse that my Dad made in elementary school. He was going to try to give the mouse to me this year, but my brother Brad caught wind of this and had been planning since last Christmas (when he gave the mouse to Dad) to make Dad get the mouse two years in a row. So, once he found out that Dad was going to give me the mouse again, we unwrapped it on Christmas Eve after he had gone to bed and rewrapped it and addressed it to him for him to open on Christmas morning. As you can see in the picture below, he got quite a kick out of it!

Chris and Di's youngest, Elijah, enjoyed his first Christmas and is opening his present from Aimee and me in the picture below.

Aimee and I enjoyed spending Christmas with both families again this year, and we hope that you and your families had memorable Christmases as well!