My mother- and father-in-law, trying to tackle their stockings. Santa always fills our children's stockings and Don and I fill each others. We decided Grandma and Grandpa needed stockings, too, so we bought ones for them, then filled them. Grandpa said he had never had so many gifts on Christmas in his entire life. He really seemed to enjoy opening his gifts - a taste of Christmas the way the younger Doughty family does it. Notice who's piled on the couch next to Grandma and she can't open her own presents what for petting the little pooch. He always gravitates towards my mother-in-law when we're there. Every night, he snuggles her on the couch instead of me. He just instinctively knows she's Grandma. Plus, she's very sweet and is much kinder and more attentive to Donovan than most people (except for me, of course).
There are also pictures of our family gathered in Don's old bedroom at home (piled on the bed) at around 5 a.m. Christmas morning. When the children wake on Christmas day, they have been taught to come immediately to our bedroom. We talk about the meaning of Christmas, read Scripture, and spend some time praying together before we tackle the less spiritual side of things to get our day started right and keep our minds on the Baby Jesus instead of "what we got". So here we are, the children bright-eyed, Don and I barely able to focus. Grandma and Grandpa look a little bleary-eyed, too.
The last is a picture of my sweet Daney looking over the stash from his stocking, specifically his men's cologne. Santa give each of the boys a bottle of cologne in their stocking every year and they apply it quite liberally on special occasions. They'll appear in the kitchen chanting, "Smell me, Mommy, smell me." I seldom have the heart to tell them that I smelled them from two miles away. In any case, I love it that they like to smell like men.
Merry End-on-the-Season and happy belated Epiphany!
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