Our First

Hi Pal,

Yesterday was our first Christmas without you.

Boy was it sad. We did our best though,

you would have been proud of us.

On Christmas Eve, the kids sang at

church. They did great.

After church we ate our

Christmas Eve dinner of Salmon. Dad had

steak :o)

After dinner, we opened our
Christmas Eve pajamas.
Boy did I miss giving you Fun Girl
pajamas.
Jon bough Transformer pj's for
the Big K. and himself.

K. loved his! Doodles

and I had matching owl pajamas.

I even bought some pj's for Dad.

He was so excited to have a Christmas Eve

present.

We invited him to stay the night at our house,

but he wanted to go home.

We both cried, because we missed you so much

on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning, the kids were really excited

for their presents.

I wish you could have seen them.

Santa brought Doodles a doll with a

barking dog on a leash.

Guess what?! The first thing she did when she

got her doll was to take the clothes all off.

Just like I did when I was small.

It must be a little girl thing.

She said, "I bet Oma did too."

I told her I was sure you did.

The Big K. got walkie talkies.

I loved this picture of him.

I thought you would too.

Mom, Dad made sure that the kids had

the presents you wanted for them.

He gave Doodles two books with

dollar bills in the pages. Just like

you wanted her to have.

He put "From: Oma and Papa"

on the tags.

He bought them new, big kid,

Bibles like you wanted.

Th Big K. loved the bank

that you picked out for him.

He was so excited to know that you

had chosen it for him,

that it was one of the last things

you bought.

He loved it. You were right.

Dad found the paint sets that you bought the kids,

hoping to paint with them.

He gave Doodles the one that you

bought for yourself to paint.

I told the kids about you buying them to do

with the kids.

They missed you so much. I cried

all morning.

When I got to my Christmas stocking,

I missed you even more.

I missed you filling it for me, and telling me about

the search for all of the stuff.

I missed our Fun Girl presents

to each other.

We talked a lot about last Christmas.

I'm so thankful that we made it fun.

I'm so thankful that we were all

together.

I'm so thankful you were with us.

At dinner, I used your Christmas table

cloth. Dad said he knew you'd be happy to know

that we were using your things.

He's right. You would be.

You wouldn't have wanted the stuff to just sit and

not be used.

I made Cornish hens just like you did

when we were growing up.

I found a really good recipe

for orange glaze and wild rice

stuffing. You would have loved it.

After dinner, we celebrated

Jesus' birthday.

We sang to Him.

We put one candle on the cake for

each soul that belongs to Him.

We put a candle on the cake for you,

because we know that you spent Christmas

with Jesus. Even though I'm so happy for

you not to be sick, boy do

I miss you down here.

I really missed you at Christmas.

I know your Christmas was merry.

Mom, I want you to know that ours was too.

We did our best. We made it through. We

made Christmas as happy as we could for the kids and for

each other, but we really miss you.

Merry Christmas Mom.

I love you.

Love, Your Pal