. . . and all through the house, things looked pretty clean and festive. All four of our kids (and their families) were coming home on December 13 so that we could celebrate Ted’s birthday and Christmas together. The early celebrations turned out to be a good thing, given the horrible weather across the country and the Southwest Airlines meltdown the following week. Ted and I were really busy for about 10 days ahead of time, putting things in order and cleaning up after the contractors left our house, (more on that another time). We managed to get all the beds made up for the eight kids and grandkids who were staying with us; we arranged catered meals for our crowd of fifteen people so that we’d have time for fun instead doing the cooking and cleanup; we decorated the house and the yard; we bought and wrapped gifts; and we made Christmas candy and cookies. Here’s Ted helping with the cookie-making.

One day, our family activity was a visit to the Science Center to have some fun. Everyone always likes to build the arches. They don’t stand alone until a tall-enough person puts the keystone block into place.

Hadley was fascinated by the planets and solar system features that appeared when she stepped in the right places on this mat.

I enjoyed the history of games exhibit. I’m old enough to remember all those boxed games in the photo below–in those boxes.

We selected another day to celebrate Ted’s birthday, starting with a visit to Historic Main Street in St. Charles. All the stores (and most of the shopkeepers) were decorated and dressed in holiday fashion and, just like us, there were lots of people enjoying the festive atmosphere.

Grandma’s Cookies is a favorite stop for warm cookies, hot chocolate, and coffee. You can see the line of people across the street, all waiting for a warm cookie. The line was actually three times longer than what you see in the photo below, but the cookies are worth the wait.

There were so many people downtown that we had to park quite far away. That gave our group a chance to walk back to our cars along the Missouri Riverfront and past the Katy train station.

On the way to our cars, we saw the Grinch biking on the Katy Trail, which runs along the Missouri River. It looks like he’s bringing Christmas, not stealing it. Check out the reindeer pulling his bike/sleigh.

Ted chose Fratelli’s Italian Restaurant for his birthday dinner–a gift from the kids, who included my meal as well. (We have great kids!) We were all so busy having a good time together that we didn’t think about taking birthday pictures, so here’s a picture of Ted on his 40th birthday. Except for the hair color and the huge 80s glasses, he doesn’t look much different all these years later. ♥♥

Another day was designated as our early Christmas Day together. We opened gifts, enjoyed Christmas cookies and candy, did a lot of talking, and played some games.

Thom helped Hadley get started with her pile of gifts.

She got a soft puppy from Grandma and Grandpa and immediately said “puppy” with a big smile. She has quite a large vocabulary for an 18-month-old.

We gave Sefton The Book With No Pictures. He could read the story himself and giggled at the nonsense words. While Sefton giggled, Hadley found a local newspaper in the magazine rack and decided to check out what’s happening in our area.

Ted and Annette have a reputation among family members for becoming a little ant-sy if the after-meal chatter continues too long and the dishes haven’t been started. At the first indication that it won’t be impolite to get up from the table to start loading the dishwasher, they are hard at work. In recognition of their efforts, Kathy and I designed and made buttons for them that read “#1 DISHES TEAM.” Here they are, wearing their buttons and doing what they do well.

You can tell by Annette’s and Hadley’s smiles in the photo above that, once again, we were having so much fun together, no one remembered to take a group photo to prove we were all together at the same time. Here’s a “half of the group” photo that Kari took at Ted’s birthday dinner at Fratelli’s. Like everyone else, she was having so much fun, she forgot to take a picture of the other half of the group at our second table.

And here’s a substitute Christmas family photo from 1994–an earlier Christmas when all the kids were home.

Katie found Thom and Hadley like this after all the celebrating.

And, just like that, it was over. The kids and grandkids headed back to their own homes. It was great to have them all here, and yes, it was a rush to be ready fifteen days before Christmas, but it left us with nothing to be done for the entire week preceding December 25. We had lots of time to relax and to remember and talk about how nice it was for all of us to be together.

On Christmas Day, Kari’s family came over so that our families could be together on the real holiday. She and I decided to serve finger foods only–minimal prep and minimal clean-up–before we all watched the new Elvis movie. It was another good day with our family.

With a little bit of furniture re-arrangement, we could all see Elvis on the TV screen around the Christmas tree.

Merry Christmas, happy new year, and peace on earth, goodwill to all.