Christmas Day #2: Port Orange

Yeah.. so I feel really silly because I didn't take a single picture on Day 2 of our Christmas, but we had an amazing day. 

The day over all didn't start overly well because I had to go into work at 5am. Unfortunately, the manager on duty decided not to come in until 6am, so I was left once again to sit in the parking lot for an hour, which only made me more tired. Once we got into the store we figured we had 2 hours to get everything ready and organized, but at 7am an announcement comes over the intercom saying that the store was open. To my dismay, my groove was instantly thrown off for the rest of the morning. Work in general was same old same old, but unlike other days, I had to spend more time listening to customers tell me how I was ruining their child's Christmas and that they hoped I was happy that their child was going to cry. All I could think was, first of all, I don't know your child and second I didn't promise them diddly squat. What they don't seem to realize is that they are the ones who promised their children something before they had them and on top of that Santa is most likely the one they will be disappointed in (aka Mom and Dad). Even though I know that their complaints are not valid in the slightest, being yelled at multiple times before 9am on Christmas Eve is not exactly what you would call holiday cheer. 

After the disaster at work of being yelled at, I made my way home and we headed out to Port Orange. Aside from the fact that we left one of Kristine's gifts at the house and had to turn around to get it, the trip was fairly smooth. 

When we got to Port Orange, we had a delicious dinner. I love pirogis and of course we had fish (I had chicken), broccoli and cheese, and potatoes. Delicious! For dessert we had cheesecake... and you can't really go wrong with cheesecake. 

After dinner, we exchanged gifts. One of the special gifts we made this year, were photo books for Ricky's mom, Ricky's grandma, my mom, and my aunt. Each one was personalized for the individual who was receiving it. For Ricky's mom, we made a book of photos from the cruise we went on in May of this year. It had the itinerary as well as pictures from throughout our trip. The one for Ricky's grandma contained older images from her younger years. In order to get the photos from her we had to tell a little fib. We said that we wanted to preserve the photos since they were getting older. She was totally surprised. I also had to promise that she would be buried with that book when the time came. I take that as a huge and precious compliment. All of the gifts were wonderful and as a matter of fact, Ricky and I are going to go to IKEA tomorrow to see what we can get for the wonderful gift card we received from his parents. Yay IKEA! I think everyone liked their gifts and there was so much thought and love put into everything that I know we all appreciate everything. 

After presents we all changed and headed to church. Christmas Eve is always a rough service for me because there will always be a song that will cause me to cry. Normally, its the song that occurs when the lights are turned down low and is usually one of the more somber songs (O Holy Night or Silent Night are the biggies). This year it was in fact Silent Night. I made it through the first verse and then couldn't continue from there. I think what did it this year was the fact that there was a gentleman seated a few rows in front of us that had a voice in lower register. My friend Bill who passed away many years ago, sang in the choir and had a very low register voice. Of all the people singing in the church, that one gentleman is the one I heard above the rest. That was it for me. I was done. This time of year, I really miss him and my grandfather and between the two I knew the tears were inevitably. The service was lovely though and Ricky's mom and sister did an excellent job in the choir and playing the bells.  

After the service, we left and headed to St. Pete. Normally, the trip takes about 3 hours, but we made great time and got there in 2 hours and 15 minutes. It was nice to be able to get there quickly so that we could get into bed. After all, it was a long day... and Christmas wasn't over yet.. one day left!