Brambly Pines Christmas

Michelle/Genavive squishing oysters
for the family dressing recipe at 6:30 am 

Everyone helped with the meals clean up
.....even Lily Ryann

The  gang in their matching hats that I made.

Our pretty Grand daughters

Genavive, Lily Ryann and Ian 

Lily Ryann in the heirloom Christmas
dress that Michelle made for Genavive ten years ago. 

Presents!!!!

Lily Ryann and
Ali ( from Alabama) from Oona
and Papa.

The big girls got Initial Bracelets

Something Special from Michelle

My Mom's signature....bracelet 

Craig gets tools and a tool box

Guess who this was from.......Michelle!

We had the best Christmas we've had in years....( and years) even though we had to wait a couple extra days for it.  Ryan and his gang came up from Florida on Dec 26.  Michelle and Craig came from Nashville by the way of Atlanta since they spent Christmas with Craig's family.  That made nine of us.  We found room for everyone to sleep in the house, but Chuck took his sleeping bag and went to Studio 22 each night.  When it came to meals....everyone helped. Even Lily Ryann.  That made it so much easier since we had to wash all the dishes by hand each meal.  ( no...I don't use paper plates.  I hate them!!...what's 9 plates to wash when you have the rest of the dishes any ways.)  Our Christmas morning started out at 6:30 am with making the family recipe oyster dressing.  Once we got the turkey in the oven for 4 1/2 hours, we all dressed so we could open presents.  Lily Ryann wore a pretty dress that Michelle had made for Genavive when she was 5 years old.  We kept her hair out of her face with a headband with a big red bow on it, that was Michelle's when she was little.  Oh how pretty she was!  There were tons of presents to open as we took turns opening one.  It seems the popular present was bracelets for the girls.  Michelle took a picture of my Mom's "signature" from a card that Mom had written and was in a scrap book that I had made.  Then, she sent the picture to a lady on the Internet and she made a silver bracelet out of my mom's signature.  I LOVE IT!!!  Yes, I cried when I opened it.  After opening presents, our Christmas dinner was ready.  Everyone spent the afternoon playing with their presents.  What a great day it was!!!