A VERY Merry Christmas

When John was finally well enough and home we began planning for Christmas. I was expecting our short term disability to be processed within the week that the insurance company assured me was the processing time. I felt really angry, frustrated and overwhelmed when I realized this was going to take a long time. One of John's friends didn't recieve his disability pay until he was back at work 8 weeks later. It won't surprise you to discover that it took exactly eight weeks to get our first check. If you do the math that means after Christmas. One of my sisters plotted a plan with the help of the rent of one of my brothers, to help with Christmas.
One black Friday I went with Laura and Dee Christmas shopping for our girls. I was so impressed with myself. I never had wanted to go shopping that early or with all the "crazy" people, so event was a first. I got great deals and managed to find three small gifts for each girl. I felt like I was Super Mom, until I got home looked at everything spread out in my studio...yea, not so much stuff now that I had it home. The next week we discovered that a friend and a local lodge had gotten together to provide Christmas for my girls. The next surprise came when John's doctors office staff called and said they wanted to do Christmas for our girls too. I gave different wish lists to each group and told them please, please, please don't go overboard on the whole gift thing. Well wasn't I surprised to see the tons of packages (prewrapped...thankyou thankyou thankyou) that were delivered to our home.

Here is what Mom, Dad, and Santa had pulled together over the year.

This is what happen when good people get together to give three sweet girls a Christmas. Yes, the presents are all the way around the tree filling a 5' square area and the top of our entertainment center.

This is Paige's response when she came out Christmas Morning...lucky shot with the camera.

Don't worry she was still overly impressed with the "popping paper". She thought that it was a present too.

Here's a picture of when mom got too tired of having each girl take a turn opening gifts and just turned them loose. That comment makes me sound way laid back and not like the true daughter of my father which I am, who "needs" organization in all things. The truth? The only rule....um, stipulation I made was that they could open one at a time with their sisters. The girls loved everything so much, that we had a hard time getting them to leave all of their fun new stuff to go to Christmas at their Aunt Laura's.

John and I are so thankful for our friends, family and complete strangers who came through for our girls and gave them....Here's what Miss Sydney said, "this was the best Christmas ever, mom!"