When I lived in Malawi, Boxing Day was the day when we'd "box" up our leftovers or small gifts to give our help, and any other locals who provided a service to us. It was usually soap and toothpaste and practical things like that. Anyway, I regress... I am now over the Christmas hump and I'm still all in one piece, lol.
Sunday, we went to the pediatric ward at the hospital around noon and gave out gifts to the few kiddos who were there, also left a few more in the kids ER for the ones who might come through later.
Then we came home and we all cleaned house a bit, the kids cleaned in their room too so I could wrap presents. In the evening the kids and I acted out the Christmas story as read from the Bible by DH. We also sang a bunch of Christmas carols which was fun. Then we opened presents (well, the kids did anyway). We actually ended up with more than I thought. I forgot that DH had brought some dollar store toys home awhile back so I got them out of hiding and wrapped those (Dora dominos, a Dora velcro bullseye game, a plastic doll, some trucks, several stocking stuffers, and whatever I came up with the other day). I didn't get the quilt or finger puppets done in time so they will have to wait a little longer. They had fun playing with their toys till it was time for bed. Gigi played with her tea set with her ceramic doll. Then it was bedtime and mommy got to stay up till after 1 a.m. again working on Gigi's quilt.
Yesterday, after getting up, we did some more cleaning before my parents got here. After they got here, I started an apple pie and my rolls in the bread maker. While we were waiting for lunch, we worked on a puzzle. For lunch we had roti, vegetarian "conch" stew on rice, rolls (they were't done till everyone was done eating tho :(, green salad, and green bean salad (diced tomatoes, chopped small cooked fresh green beans, chopped boiled eggs, mayo & garlic salt to taste...yummo!). Very non-traditional, but very good! We waited on the dessert for a couple of hours to give our tummies time to digest. After lunch, we let the kids open their presents from Grandma and Grandpa. I know I'll probably forget something, but here's what I remember: a coloring book and large box of crayons each (these are for the older two unless I specify), a Russian hat for G1, matryoshka / nesting dolls for Gigi, a Leappad Word Wammer game for both of them, a firetruck and train that track a dark line on paper (a black crayon or magic marker line works), a quilt for Gigi and a box of real Legos (not Duplos) for G1. Eli got a graduated shape stacker toy (with the rings getting smaller as they go up), and a baby Leappad. After this, DH & I sat down with Dad so he could show me some things for the contract work I'm doing for him. Then a little before M&D left to go back home, our new neighbors came over with gifts for the older 2. I had never met the wife so it was really nice to chat with them for a little bit. They were really nice. I'm going to make some banana bread today or pumpkin bread to take over there as a thank you. I'll have the kids make a card too.
Eli started babbling "da da" yesterday so that was his gift to his dad. He also let me sleep in till 8:30 this morning so that was his gift to me :) He's doing much better so I think maybe it was just teething (he did get snuffy too) and hopefully he's past the bad part for whatever tooth is trying to come in.
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