Christmas At The Wagner's!

So, does the title make sense? It's often hard to get everyone together for a Christmas party before everyone goes on Christmas leave. So Yvonne picked a Sunday afternoon and we celebrated Christmas here before everyone went home on leave to be with their real families.

Lots of people think our biggest groups would be at Thanksgiving and Christmas, but usually it's not! Because those are the two holidays when the majority of our adopted sons and daughters go home. So sometimes it can get pretty quiet around here during the holidays.

John Ortiz made Christmas Chocolate Chip cookies,

For 30 years Yvonne and I have put real candles on our Christmas trees...and yes, we actually light them! We did it during the party to show the guys and girls, Crystal, a little German culture and tradition. Everyone wanted to know where the fire extinguisher was! It was right next to me.

I also showed them a video of a Christmas program filmed in Austria many years ago. It was a Marianne and Michael Christmas music special. Except for John Ortiz, none of them could understand what was being said, but they could enjoy the Austrian costumes and the music. Afterward I shared the Christmas story from Matthew and Luke, and then we prayed together.

Did I say John Ortiz loves making chocolate chip cookies!

All of a sudden Yvonne is standing in the room telling us to look up! She got a picture of me showing my stamp collection to Cristian and Ryan.

John checking his cookies!!

Yea! They turned out GREAT!

It was a nice time of sharing some of our German culture and heritage and eating chocolate chip cookies!