Christmas Club & Thanksgiving Weekend, 2010

Time for another installment of Christmas Club, a sharing of Christmas Memories, inspired by Sian of High in the Sky.  Today I thought I would share a layout with a special Christmas memory about the year I put off taking the kids to see Santa until the last minute, and I ended up totally stressed and worried that we'd be waiting in line forever.  Instead, we experienced our best Santa visit ever:

Here's the journaling:
In a slightly past-its-prime mall called Whittwood, we met the REAL SANTA.  When Henry said he didn't know what he wanted, Santa said "Why don't we make it a surprise, then."  When Clara said she wanted the two Bitty Baby dolls, Santa said, "You mean the twins?" I said, "You've heard of them?" Santa replied, "Of course.  I made them."  Clara said she wanted the stroller but thought it wouldn't fit down the chimney and might scratch Grandma's roof.  Santa said, "Don't worry.  I'll just sprinkle it with some magic dust."  Clara gave him a big hug and said, "I love you Santa. Merry Christmas."  Christmas Eve, 2002

Flash forward to this weekend.  We had a quiet Thanksgiving with just the four of us.  Clara was a big help. She made two desserts: a chocolate pudding pie and apple pie pockets.

We had a wonderful dinner:  turkey; three vegetable casseroles (which we ate for lunch - will definitely continue that tradition); mashed potatos; and stuffing. Clara and I set the table with my Aunt Vera's china and my Grandmother Ontiveros' silver.  I explained to Clara as we worked why these were important to me.  Henry was in charge of peeling the potatoes.

On Saturday, I had the good fortune of having brunch with Karen of Random Reflections.  She is just as lovely in person as you would expect from having visited her blog.  We could have talked for hours, but she was off to get a Christmas tree, and I was off to watch Henry play in the Alumni Soccer game:

That's a picture of Henry running alongside an alum named Fausto Villegas.  He's the only soccer All-American to come out of our small high school.  He also played for the U.S. National U17 World Cup team! Henry did okay keeping up with him, as well as another alumni who played semi-pro soccer in Mexico.  It was such fun to see him back out on the pitch. 

Finally, in my very small Christmas miracle for this year, I found my iphone.  It had been missing for several days when the finders returned a call my friend Sherri made to the cell phone number. They told her they had found it, and this morning Paul and I went to retrieve it.  We had to drive an hour each way to get it, but we found a totally delightful mom who wanted to set an example to her children (one of whom I think "found" the phone) that they are an honest family who returns things.  The experience was a wonderful ending to a wonderful weekend!