The Hap Hap Happiest Christmas

First of all, welcome back to Taulman Times. A lot has changed since you were here last, so it might take a while for us to get caught up. As you can see, the blog layout is pretty primitive. I might make some changes later. Then again, I might not.

It is currently 5:00 p.m. on December 26, 2017. It is snowing. I am laying in bed in my new attic bedroom watching it snow while drinking a cup of coffee. It doesn't get much better than this.

In the past four days we have worked hard to get my master bedroom moved upstairs and to get Brynne's bedroom moved into my old one. We still have a lot to do (the addition is far from complete), but it sure feels good to be in a fresh, new space.

We had a great Christmas. As our house is still in construction chaos, Collin and Kyndal hosted our annual Christmas Eve "Christmas Vacation" movie viewing and all festivities on Christmas Day. Although it was really difficult for me emotionally to give up control of having the activities at my house, it was neat to be able to spend time as a family at my grown-up daughter's home. She and Collin have created such a wonderful home for their family.

This year I bought each member of the family a Christmas Vacation quote t-shirt and matching pj bottoms. We opened them on Christmas Eve. Once the first person had his open and everyone else figured out what they were getting, they got really excited to see which t-shirt was theirs. I tried really hard to pick out ones to match the personalities of the ones wearing them. I did pretty good. Then when we watched the movie we each stood up when our quote was being said. It was lots of fun.

Christmas Day was a lot of fun, filled with a yummy biscuits and gravy breakfast and then a gift-a-thon. There were great gifts exchanged! Favorite gifts were: Kyndal's personalized stadium chair for watching all of Brynne's sporting activities; Dawson's gandolf pipe and lighter; Eli's Xbox One X, and Brynne's personalized sports duffel. My family spoiled me with all of the things that are most important to me ...  items to create my tranquility corner, a canvas of my grandson, Bennett, and a Kuerig for my upstairs wine and coffee bar. (I don't put tags on the kids' gifts. I wrap each kids' gifts in a separate wrapping paper. They have to get a piece of the paper from the bottom of their stocking to tell them which gifts are theirs. Then they dig under the tree to get them. It's fun!!)

A cool thing we did this Christmas was to make One Word bracelets using a kit I purchased MyIntent.org. Some of the words chosen for the bracelets were Emcompass, Achieve, Live, Journey, and Might. Then we took turns answering questions from thought-provoking cards provided in the kit.

My word for 2017 is Might. Have you chosen yours? Hope your Christmas was Merry and your New Year is the Hap Hap Happiest ever!