Schartz Christmas

We started our Christmas celebration by attending the 5:00 p.m. Mass. I don't have any pictures of that as I didn't think Father Ted would appreciate flash photography during the Mass. I will say the Cathedral was full which is always nice to see. After Mass we headed back to Joe's parents to start the evening with chili, entertainment, gift opening and more entertainment. After dinner the men were nominated to do the dishes. Some men were working harder than others, ha. Joe was clearly parched and needed to stop for a beverage break. As always, before opening gifts, the family sang silent night accompanied by Joe's sister, Jeri, on the guitar as the grandchildren carried in candles to line up around the nativity scene and Keylee (not pictured), since she is the youngest grandchild, carried in baby Jesus to place in the manger.

Our nephew, Preston, asked for Jeri's guitar for a special impromptu song. As you can see from the cheers behind Preston, everyone enjoyed his song.

Grammy and the Grands had yet another performance-wooing the crowd. Joe's Mom gathered the grandchildren and did a special rendition of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Keylee, featured here with her cousin Tanner, was Rudolph.

The performance brought the crowd to their feet. (oh ya, we were already standing but it was still great)

One highlight that I failed to get pictures of was Joe's sister Toni and her presentation of "Toni's Favorite Things." I think she was dressed in about seven layers of clothing as she had a different shirt to represent each of her favorite things. Another highlight was Joe's Dad wearing the reindeer antlers during the gift exchange (he wore the antlers the grandchildren wore as pictured above). I did get pictures of it but elected not to post them in fear he might not find it as funny today as he did on Christmas Eve. Nonetheless, he was in the Christmas spirit and helped make the evening memorable and fun everyone. Finally, the highlight that must not go unmentioned was that all six children were home with their spouses and children. However, John and Jeri's daughter, Jenilee, is a nurse and had to work in the ER and could not travel to Dodge and John and Jeri's son, Ryan, works on the Ron Paul campaign and he is assigned to Maryland and could not make the trip home. Jenilee and Ryan were missed.

We celebrated Christmas at Thanksgiving with my family and I will post those photographs at a later date.