Merry Christmas! We have spent a nice, leisurely day here at home! The Walkers are in Penn. so Grandmama and Grandaddy came over for the day, and the delicious smells are wafting through the house as we all prepare a lovely feast! The sometimes disagreeable job of bread-making seems always to fall to the eldest daughter! I sometimes like making bread, but it is rather like having a toddler to watch, because you must baby-sit the bread dough and that can be tiresome. But in the end it is worth it! For some strange and unknown reason we girls avoid making bread and cutting lettuce for a salad like the plague! We haven't figured out why! We didn't wake up this morning till 6:52 which is an hour and a half later than usual Christmas mornings! Then we had to do a bunch of various tasks like eat breakfast, set up cameras, marinate a venison roast, wrap a couple presents and things of that sort before we really could get going! We did a lovely advent time before opening gifts! And Daniel read us the Christmas story as usual before we opened our stockings. I love the tradition of putting Christ's birth first before anything else! From Dad and Mama I (Rachel) got a stamp and sealing wax sticks, a new wallet, an herbal set-up, (complete with the shot glasses I asked for to mix up tinctures in. I found during our bout with illness recently that they would be ideal for dosing people!) and a cameo pendant. Then Daniel gave me the new Susan Boyle c.d.
(a Scottish woman with an amazing voice. But they do a strange thing. On several songs they mix her voice with an African-American choir I believe, and it just seems strange since her voice is so classically opera. But it is really pretty.)
Sarah made me a hopechest book like Alaina did for Morgan's graduation. Leah gave me a volume of four Jane Austen books, Anna made me jewelry, Benj. gave me a box of tea, Abby made me soap, and Gracie gave me a kiss. :) Then Grandmama gave me such a great gift! When I put this on my list I hadn't the foggiest idea that she would do it! She made me an absolutely beautiful cloak and muff to match my Civil War dress, and she is working on a bonnet to go with it! The cloak is of a sort of black velvet with red trim and lined with red silk. Then the collar is a woolly white sort of thing to match the muff! I am so excited! I would take pictures, but our camera doesn't do that sort of thing well at all! (I don't mean to boast about my gifts at all! It is just that in a large family, you get more presents since everyone else wants to bless each member of the family! Count- that's seven extra gifts!)
I also had alot of fun watching people open the presents I gave them! Daniel had winkled his gift out! (Shame on him! :) and Sarah loved her's. I wrote her a story called "A Tale of Fairfax and Cloves". Which is about two middle-aged sisters who run a general store. Their names are Dolly and Cecelia Fairfax. Anyhoo! We love giving hints to our presents. And really random hints at that. Leah's hint for the Austen books was "Chicken". Because on a little kid's show there is a chicken named Jane, and Jane Austen wrote the books. Then Daniel's hint for me was "tiger-pits". Now keep in mind that the gift was a c.d. The explanation? When a very small girl Sarah had a dream about tiger-pits, and on the c.d. there is a track titled, "I Dreamed a Dream."
But I got him back by telling him that his hint from me was "Dragon". (I made him Welsh cakes) The explanation for that? The Walkers have a bumper-sticker that says," The Welsh never die, they just drag-on" and it has a picture of a dragon. Touche! ;)
We are rather strange sometimes! :) My hint for Sarah was "Spice cabinet". Anyway, I'm sure you are tired of hearing about our Christmas! We are looking forward to delivering gifts to some friends tomorrow! And hosting church on Sunday! Well, I must go hie away and check on that dependent little lump of bread dough! It can do nothing for itself! :) -Rachel
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