Christmas is here!

While getting ready for Christmas and trying to recover from surgery, things became a little tricky. The girls and Miguel really stepped up to help me. Luckily, I had already completed my Christmas shopping, but wrapping was another story. I had most of it done, but then there was my Mother's box of goodies. We also needed to make our neighbor treats.
My doctors orders was to not lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk. That is a tall order with so many things to do. I also quickly learned that my digestive system was my worst enemy! Every movement felt like it was ripping through my stitches, or whoever they had done in there. It was very painful at times, but I managed to get through it. By Monday I was getting anxious to get out of the house and walk, so I went early in the morning to the Rec center with Miguel. Right at the start, I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to do this. I had some sharp pains, but I persevered and made my way around the indoor track 4-5 times at the pace of a snail. The golden girls were walking laps around me, and I desperately wish I had made a sign that said, "don't judge...just had surgery!" It was quite depressing to see all of the things I couldn't do at that moment and how far it seemed I had to go to get to that point. 
Here are the treats we made this year. It is hot chocolate on a stick. They tasted pretty good, but I don't know that it was worth the price it cost to make, or the trouble. Max was pretty impressed by the amount of trash he was collecting by unwrapping all of the peppermint pieces. They were all pretty helpful.



Once Christmas Eve arrived we were pretty much ready to go. The girls had been telling that they really wanted to open one gift on Christmas Eve, so I told them that I had a special surprise for them. They assumed it was a present from under the tree, but I had a better idea. I told them that they couldn't have the gift unless they were dressed up and presentable. Here they are before the surprise.

Gabriela decided to dress Max up like a true Mexican and Max named himself Brandino. We all laughed pretty hard, except for Max. He was ready to go hang out and help Grandma prepare for the party later that day. 
Once we dropped Max off we headed to Shelley's house to get Annabelle. We then started our drive up to Salt Lake. On the way, we handed each girl and envelope with their name on it and had them open them up all at once. We were surprising them with tickets to the Nutcracker ballet by Ballet West at the Capital Theatre. They were excited and I wanted to expose them to something nice.

Ballet West always does such a nice job and the dancers have some serious talent. Makes me wish I had a ballet background. Afterwards, we were off to our family party at Shelley's house.