Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone had a blessed Christmas this year. I for one am very blessed and thankful for everything that God has given me and my family. What a difference Christmas is when you have a little child to watch as she learns what Christmas is. Paige was so much fun! Megan brought her up to our house while my side of the family was still here. She was dressed in the cutest plaid Christmas dress and had little red shoes on. SOOOO CUTE!!!! She enjoyed opening presents and didn't care in the least what was in them. She would ooooh and show everyone what she got. We all just melted!
Our day starts with opening presents with our kids in the morning, we then go to Larry's mom and dad's house to eat homeade pierogies. They aren't like what most people think of when they think pierogies. She makes hers with dry curd cottage cheese and chives, then you put browned butter over them.........delish!!!! Then it's back home to cook dinner for my side of the family. We do the traditional ham with all the fixings. I put the ham on before we go down to Larry's mom's. I always make a broccoli casserole (my neice Michelle's favorite) and Jeanine makes a delicious manicotti recipe. We got those prepared and put them in the oven to bake. The family was to be here around 3:00. We were all here and ready to start eating, my brother was carving the ham and we were about to put the rest of the food on the table, when the lights went out! This is not the first holiday we've spent in the dark. One year at Thanksgiving, we lost power before the turkey was done. Thankfully I have a gas oven down at the old golf course's kitchen..........but that's another story. Back to this year, I called the power company to report the outage and just as I was hanging up the phone, the lights came back on. We woo-hooed and I was taking all the credit for it, when the lights flickered and went out for good! So I get some candles lit and we finally get ready for dinner. I go to the oven to retrieve the manicotti and broccoli, when I try to open the oven door and nothing happens........The darn thing is LOCKED!!!!! It must have some kind of safety mechanism (we can't figure out what we're being protected from) and the oven automatically locks when the power goes out. We resign ourselves that we're just going to have to eat ham and the potatoes that my SIL brought when Larry comes to the rescue with a wire hanger. A little manouvering of the hanger and VOILA!!..........dinner is served!
It was really enjoyable to just sit and visit with each other without the distraction of the television and all the backround noise. We played a game called "Smart Ass", it says on the box that even a "dumb ass" can win, which was good for us, lol ;) It was alot of fun.
So today, I am going to relax and read a book and just hang out all day with nothing pressing to do. Oh, and I might eat a few dozen cookies too!!