I sleepily open my eyes around eight; the ground is covered with a light coating of snow. It's at least in single digits. This is the perfect Christmas setting! The only problem is, it's technically not Christmas. Since Joshua had to work on Christmas day and the rest of us were in Dallas, we decided to have our family Christmas on December 30th. After I did my devotions, I rushed downstairs to help with the preparation of breakfast. My dad outdid himself this time. The menu was country style eggs, (complete with potatoes, onions, peppers, and bacon) pancakes, and hash browns. Remember the hash browns they come in later. By the time I made it to the kitchen, Michaela and Daddy had already made the pancake batter and were partway through assembling ingredients for the eggs. I don't even want to think about how early they must have gotten up. Nonetheless, I did make it in time to scour the house for mild peppers, and to observe our new vegetable chopper at work. There was a general air of rush in the kitchen because my father had a doctor's appointment at ten 'o clock. We wanted to put everything together and then cook and eat it when he returned. Around 8:45 Joshua texted that he was heading home. When my dad double-checked his appointment time, he realized that it was at elven not ten 'o clock. Now we were in a quandary: should we continue with our original plan or try to squeeze breakfast in before my parents left? We went with the latter plan and the bustle in our already small kitchen increased considerably. I feel I should mention at this point that while most of the aforementioned was occurring, my mother was snuggled up in bed, with coffee provided for her by her husband. Since Daddy was busy with the eggs, he appointed me to make the hash browns, no simple task. Apparently, the trick is to press out as much water from the shredded potatoes as you can. Unfortunately, we did not have the tool the website suggested so we had to make do with pressing them in between paper towels. The hash browns did not go exactly as planned and ended up almost burnt in some places and mushy in others. Yet, my family declared them delicious, and I decided with lots of ketchup they tasted fine. Just as we were sitting down to eat, Joshua walked through the door. We greedily consumed the pancakes as soon as Michaela brought them out. She and I were afraid that we didn't have enough food and considered making another batch of pancakes. However, there were just enough, with no extras. Now came the hard part: waiting. Once my parents left and we finished cleaning the kitchen, we three kids just sat around in the living room. Joshua took a nap, but I just sat there, waiting for my parents to come home so we could open our gifts. An hour and thirty minutes later, my parents came back! We opened our gifts and played games the rest of the afternoon. Reflecting on our day, it definitely was not a traditional Christmas, in fact, some might even call the day "crazy." But the fact is, our traditions and expectations aren't as important as the fact that Christ was born. Truth be told, Jesus might not have even been born on December 25th (gasp), and that's ok. Christmas is a time to celebrate Christ's birth, something that's a whole lot of fun to do with your family. From that perspective, I'd say we had a great Christmas!
Grace
Home on the Range: The official blog of the Creers in Salina, Kansas
