Christmas Day 2010

Last year was awful.  Over a year on treatment and there is a huge difference in Sammy.  He is able to enjoy the festivities almost one hundred percent!  Now, I tend to have mixed feelings about Christmas.  It is my favorite holiday because of the magic my boys still experience, yet I dread the preparations needed in order for it all to fall into place.  I deem it to be totally worth the effort, however, when I hear literal squeals of delight on Christmas Eve as Sammy and Jack  make cookies for Santa and leave out carrots for the reindeer.  Cookies, carrots and chemo!  What fun.

We decided to indulge Jack this year as he has been so good with everything and has generally taken a back seat despite our best efforts to protect him from that.  Actually, I'd change that to a seat slightly to the side...we really have been trying to make things as fair as possible.  Anyway...Jack was the delighted recipient of a plasma TV for his room.  I am anti-bedroom TV, but we decided to go for one that had a built in DVD player and we won't be getting him cable.  The last thing I want is Jack disappearing into his room to watch TV all the time.  He happily understood our rules and has been amazingly open to asking us permission to watch it...Oh, I'm blessed!

Sammy got his favorite gift from Nana Haze; a HUGE Lego City set which will keep him busy for all of an hour...he really is very good at legos.  He also loves his new camera.  Check out these pics:

Not bad for a little fella huh?

Our Christmas was spent with Nana and Poppa and cousins, Lori, Karen, David, Noah and Aunt Bobbi.  It was great to spend time with them all and we had a lot of fun.  The kids played well with Noah, and we actually enjoyed a lot of 'grown-up' time without me having to hover over Sammy...wonderful for both my sanity and for the fact that Sammy could be left alone to play. 

Everyone was a good sport about my Christmas festivities..I am the only Christian amongst us all, and they happily sat with paper crowns on their heads, eating roast lamb and roasted veggies, as Christmas songs were droned out by the Rat Pack over the iPod all evening.  Mimosas, wine and beer flowed as the humor digressed to jolly festive silliness.  I was a happy bunny, enjoying family and fun, without once thinking about leukemia...a Christmas miracle was that I actually remembered to administer the meds on time....but then again, we never forget those....so I guess it is in the back of our minds all the time.