Christmas on Call

Merry Christmas from Charleston!

For the second year in a row, John was on call over Christmas (of all the luck!), so our Christmas celebrations were a little different this year. Since John has to work through Monday, we're going home to Oklahoma after Christmas instead of on Christmas. So we got to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning in our own home in our new town.

While I baked, ran errands and relaxed at home on Christmas Eve, John was at the hospital until about 5:30 pm.

Working hard on Christmas Eve

When John got home, we cooked a special Christmas Eve dinner together while listening to Christmas music, my favorite!

Glad I got to spend at least some time with my love on Christmas.

John stayed toasty by the Yule Log. We actually do have a fireplace, but it is way too warm here to fire it up. It was in the high 60s today! Earlier this week, I had the AC on!

The Christmas Eve Meal: Steak, twice-baked potatoes, my homemade cornbread and peas! It may not be traditional, but it was yummy!

And we ate it on the coffee table in the living room while watching our favorite Christmas movies. Mine: "The Santa Clause", John's: "A Christmas Story."

Unfortunately we didn't get to go to Christmas Eve service because John could get paged at any time. So the rest of the evening looked like this:

John checking up on his patients

But everything else at our home was ready for Christmas, including me!

Our beautiful Christmas tree

The new Charleston ornament I picked out. It has all the Charleston landmarks on it.

The Charleston ornament John picked out: a blue crab!

After our movies, we settled down for a long winter's nap. And luckily, not a creature was stirring....

Not even a pager. Thankful for a silent night!

John left for the hospital at 6:30 am on Christmas morning, so we woke up at 5:30 to do our Christmas time before he left.

First up: stockings! And no, there's not three people living here. John just got me so much good stuff for my stocking, he needed two socks to hold it all. Love him!

John loved the mustache clips in his stocking. No, not clips you put in your mustache. Paper clips in the shape of mustaches.

We had our traditional monkey bread for breakfast (yum!) and John read the Christmas story from the Bible before we opened gifts.

Actually, there weren't many gifts to open this year. We decided to buy a new coffee table as our Christmas gift to each other. But, the table is going to be custom built, so we don't have it yet. Despite the table gift, John got me something else anyway. And since I didn't buy wrapping paper this year (all our gifts are being packed in suitcases and flown to Oklahoma!), he decided to just decorate the box instead of wrap it.

Beautiful!

And inside the box was.....

A foam Schooner hat! Just what I've been saying I wanted all football season long! I knew Santa was a Sooner! I can't wait to bust this baby out at a game :)

And that's it folks! John's at work, I'm cuddled up on the couch and tonight we're going to a friend's house for Christmas dinner. I hope you are spending the holiday with those you love and that you have a very Merry Christmas!