Merry Christmas!

Wow! What a Christmas season we've had this year. After 6 parties I'm ready for the New Year.

We started off the month of December by attending the extended Schwartz Christmas party in Michigan. This is always fun in reconnecting with some of Clint's family.

The Team Vineyard Christmas party was on the 11th at the Essen Haus with over 200 members from church. It was a nice party with quite a few new people that have become members this year.

This is a video I put together to be shown at the party ...


That same weekend on Sunday evening Clint and I went to a Northern Indiana Vineyard Pastors Christmas dinner at Amish Acres. They are normally closed on Sundays but opened one room just for us! It was crazy. :) It was nice to get to know some of the other Vineyard pastors and their wives.

On the 19th Clint's family got together for Christmas celebration at Clint's parent's home. We took the annual family picture and sang some carols.



The next day (Sunday) we went to my parent's home for our annual Christmas get together. I always love getting together with my family! We made homemade pizza and played bingo for gifts. As a gift to Mom and Dad, I put together a small scrapbook of photos of each of the 12 grandchildren, plus 2 husbands of grandchildren. In the scrapbook there was a photo collage of the grandchild and then a handwritten note from each one. I finished it one hour before opening gifts!

On Monday morning we had our own family Christmas. (Michael and Anna are in Nashville.) Here are a few photos from that day...














This morning was when John Michael, Ben and Rebekah got their Daddy John gifts. This tradition started with a donation given to us the first year without John. We were given a large donation right before Christmas in 2004 by John Michael's baseball little league team. I wasn't sure what to do with it and in the end decided to buy large gifts for each of us "from John". Thus the Daddy John gifts tradition began. So now each year the kids look forward to their Daddy John gifts! I had a hard time finding the right gifts this year. Each of the boys got hoodies with Michigan and their favorite sport and a stocking cap with their favorite NFL team logo. Bekah got an American Girl doll for Christmas so I got her the books that go along with her doll named Rebecca and an oufit for her many Build-a-Bears. They each also got a big book of Peanuts and Calvin & Hobbes. I have to exchange the Calvin & Hobbes books since I was told that I got the wrong ones. :)
I already have a plan for their gifts for next year. I'm already excited to give their gifts next year! :)