Christmas is over... Now what?

The holidays are done and life is back to semi-normal. We had a blast over the holidays and it was definitely one to be remembered... but that will come in its own post.

With almost all the kids in my family married, we have a rotation that works out quite nicely. We trade off Christmas and Thanksgiving every year with "the in-laws". So this year was supposed to be in-law Thanksgiving and Brown Christmas. Well, my youngest brother (and only unmarried sibling) Caleb returned home from his mission to Korea on Dec 28th, so my mom opted to put off Brown Christmas until he could be home, so everyone just did their own thing Christmas day pretty much. Christmas Eve my brother Daniel and his family came over to stay the night before heading down to his wife's family's for Christmas day. Eric's sister Sarah is here in Mississippi so Eric invited her down to have Christmas with us. We played games, ate junk, watched A Christmas Story, continued the Johnson tradition of chocolate milk, and Hostess cupcakes, and put the kids to bed. Daniel and Lacey have 3 boys so they had plenty of presents to spread out under the tree for the boys to wake up to. Eric and I didn't see much need in a lot of presents when the idea is basically lost on Betsy. We did get her a Playskool Busy Ball Popper and Eric's parents got her a Step Start Walk 'N Ride. So we start putting them together to be set under the tree and wouldn't you know the little stinker wakes up! So she came down to help us set up her toys and try them out.

I don't know what it is about Christmas morning that is automatically programmed into kids to wake up early, but even Betsy the late sleeper was up by 7am! The Busy Ball Popper was a little too loud for her first thing in the morning and she wasn't impressed. She didn't quite "grasp" the concept of holding the handle on the walker to push it, but she loved watching the boys play with their gifts! Eric and I opened our gifts to each other. We had bought our big gifts on Black Friday and had been using them since, so Christmas morning was small. On Black Friday Eric bought me a Cricut, and I got him an iPod Touch and 1TB external hard drive he wanted. Christmas morning he got me pens to go in the Cricut to make it write, a thread organizer, and curlers... all things I had been hinting at for months, so Good Job Eric! It was awesome! I got him some cologne that he had been hinting at and a new wrist watch.

Presents were followed with the traditional Johnson aebleskivers (Danish pancakes in the shape of balls). Eric's mom got me an aebleskiver pan for Christmas so I could carry on the tradition! After a trial and error with the recipe, breakfast was delicious! Daniel and his family raced out the door immediately after presents to start making the rounds of Lacey's family. Mom and Dad packed up after breakfast and headed to Grandma and Grandpa's for the weekend. We stayed behind to allow more time with Eric's sister Sarah, but sent Betsy with Mom and Dad to allow us to fit in Daniel and Lacey's car when they came back through on their way home.

The weekend in Arkansas was fun! We had the Sherwood cousin party on the 26th and stayed up WAY too late playing games, but had a blast. We stayed with my cousin Valerie and always enjoy that. We got to visit our friends Joe and Celeste and see their adorable little girl Liz for the first time! Sunday was my niece Deserae's baptism and that is always wonderful. Then after church Eric and I headed home for him to be ready for work on Monday.