Our Christmas & Moving into the New Year!

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We had an amazing Christmas! My kids and their spouses and grandkids began arriving at about 3 in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. I had pretty much done all the dinner cooking except for the ham in the oven and the turkey in the roaster oven were still roasting. My kids had a lot of fun just socializing, enjoying the goodies, sparkling cider and egg nog. We had dinner around 5:30 and spent the rest of the evening doing a lot of chatting and a bit of gift opening. It was very memorable for us all..
 


Sunday we enjoyed Christmas day with lots of relaxing and eating leftovers as I really had cooked for an army as usual. Monday with the help of my 3 youngest kids we put Christmas decorations away disassembled the Christmas tree and with a little moving and reorganizing of things in my basement we found the perfect home for the tree where it will now await the holiday season of 2012. 



On Tuesday we loaded the family in the van and headed north to Port Townsend Washington to visit Tobin’s parents. It was a great visit and my mother in law treated us to a fantastic Norwegian buffet. The family got to enjoy a taste of food from their own heritage. 



Today life went back to normal. Hubby headed off to work and the kids are enjoying time with friends during their break. 



I am very excited to have my house all in order once again and with the holiday behind me I’m looking forward to jumping into the New Year with a lot of cleaning out, purging and organizing. My basement storage area has begun to show signs of chaos from the year’s accumulation of things. I traditionally go through everything in storage each year and see how I can downsize with bags and boxes for giving and throwing things away. It is the best feeling in the world to be on top of it all and each year I look forward to this task. So January will be the month for household organizing and I plan to post my progress here on my blog. 



As for this evening, I am writing up this month’s menu and a grocery list for tomorrow’s trip to the grocery store and working on laundry.



My kids have plans for New Years Eve with their siblings and I plan to go to bed early.. or as my friend said to me today.. they are celebrating the East Coast New Year’s.. meaning celebrating it 3 hours early!! LOL.. I like that plan a lot.. ~Smile~


That’s all from the homestead for now!!

Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 30, 2011 at 10:00 AM

    We live in Sequim WA, close to Port Townsend. We go to Port Townsend occasionally to walk through all the fun shops and eat on the water.
    Happy New Year,
    Jerene

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousDecember 31, 2011 at 2:13 PM

    Hi Crystal,
    You are clever to have the decorations put away and all cleaned up already.
    How does one become so organized? Did you hear of Flylady? I joined, but not doing too well. Any suggestions?
    And what a wonderful big family you have and good family times together.
    Will you be sharing some Christmas pic's?? Love your blog and thank you.
    Amy

    ReplyDelete
  3. CrystalDecember 31, 2011 at 2:46 PM

    Hi Amy,
    Organizing did not come naturally to me.. It was and still is a work in progress. I guess having a big family caused me to really have to focus on it or live in total chaos. I have heard of flylady but never used her methods (I know some love them). I have a lot of info on my website in the homemaking section on organizing.. http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/homemaking.htm

    Crystal :)

    ReplyDelete

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