A Cota Christmas

I wasn't really sure how I was feeling about Christmas this year.

As much as I love this time of year and getting to spend time with family,  

I was feeling more dread and anxiety about Christmas.

What would we do?

Do we keep doing the same things we used to?

Do we do something completely different to help us forget how much we're missing Grams?

I was nervous.

We headed up to Gramps' house the night before Christmas Eve.

There wasn't any snow which was kind of strange for Spokane.

We were a little disappointed we wouldn't be doing any skiing or snowboarding this trip.

On Christmas Eve day, the girls and I decided to bake some cookies for Santa's arrival!

Pulling out all of Grams' cookie baking tools made me happy.

It made the girls happy too.

Later that afternoon we all headed over to Lori and Jeff's house.

This was a first.....Jeff's parents would be there for dinner also.

It was very nice.  Their house was so beautiful and festive!

We hung out and had some snacks, opened some presents and had a super yummy dinner.

My anxiety was subsiding a little.

I still really missed my Mom, but this was nice, too.

After dinner we went back to Gramps' house and got ready for Santa Claus.

And when we woke up in the morning, Santa had been there!!

Annalise was soooo excited!!!

Santa brought her American Girl doll!!!

Santa was good to Avery, too! :)  Lots of fun stuff in and out of her stocking.

That afternoon, Gramps and the girls went to feed the horses and deer.

They heard some turkeys down in the field, so Gramps

got the turkey call and tried to get them to come up.

He got them to call back, but they stayed down in the lower part of the property.

 

The girls were really interested in trying fruit cake.

They had all sorts of questions about it.

"We love fruit....I bet we'd love fruit cake!"

I tried to explain that fruit cake is a different kind of "fruit", but they still wanted to try it.

They got a mini-cake as a present, so they gave it a try.

Yeah....not so much on the "fruit" cake.

Mallory came up on Christmas night and hung out with us for a while.

Although Christmas was different and we all very much noticed Grams' absence, it was good.

I think I decided that we keep doing whatever feels right, whether it's something new or something we always did with her.  Some things we won't change, but I'm sure lots of things will.

As long as we can be together, I think that's pretty much all that matters.

Then....it finally SNOWED!!!!!!!

We got to spend some time out playing in it!

We did one more nice, big dinner with everyone before we headed home.

And there was even time for "FRENCHY" to show up and give everyone 

manicures in Annalise's new "ORBEEZ Hand Spa" 

We had a packed full week and a half (there's another big event that took place while we were there...see the next post for details) in Spokane.  We were all tired and ready to go home.

That still didn't make it any easier to leave.  Sigh.

Annalise and Abby were ready for the trip!!!  On the road again....