The Merry Day

My favorite things about Christmas are memories, being with family, traditions, and the excitement of little kids.

My Dad pulled out his horse carriage and hitched up my sister's horse, Jet, to deliver goody plates and to give rides on Christmas morning. I love this tradition. It brings a real old-time feel to our holiday and I hope that it's a memory that our next little generation will cherish in their holiday memories. My parents always come through with making the day a great one.

My Mom always makes her amazing orange rolls for us. It's officially Christmas when I smell them baking.

And we still have something amazing to look forward to: my parents bought tickets for the entire lot of us to go on the "Polar Express" train ride on Tuesday in the Williams Grand Canyon Railway. The grandkids are all anticipating this event and Lacy has it in her head that Grandpa will be driving the train. After all, why not? He drives just about everything else. Why not the train? I love it. I think the engineer/conductor/whatever should let my Dad go to the front and take the reins for a bit. I'm not sure who'd be more thrilled, Lacy or Dad.

Thanks to my aunt, I got (as a Christmas present) a copy of the DVD from the Hansen Reunion this summer: a slide-show of my great-grandparents and their posterity. We put that in to play while we opened presents. What a treat that was. It made Christmas morning all the greater. Thanks Auntie Juju.

Here are the pictures of our carriage rides. Some are pretty similar to each other, but I just had to post them all. Merry Christmas!