A Lovely Second Sunday of Advent

Yesterday, we were supposed to go to a Christmas gingerbread house-making party at our second-oldest son's new home.  All the VA gang--sons #2, #3, and #4, and the 14 children they have between them--were going to be there.  Our boy spent hours the night before, dutifully carving up graham crackers to glue together, so that the houses would be ready for the kids to decorate with icing and candy the next day.  (He made 20 houses!)

Our daughter-in-law, who is such a great cook and truly the hostess with the mostest, was going to make a nice meal for us, and I had put together a double batch of caramel brownies and two pans of hash brown casserole to contribute to the spread.  

But as usual, if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans!

Yesterday morning as my husband and I were leaving morning Mass, we got a text from son #2's wife saying that one of their boys was throwing up and another had a fever, and they were going to have to cancel the party.

Before we even got home, we got another text from son #4, who wondered if they could swing by our place after Mass.  Their four young kids had been so excited about having a party with their cousins and were all bummed out, and he thought coming to see us might take the sting out of their disappointment. (Note to parents of littles: never tell them something good is going to happen until it's happening!  LOL)

Papa and Grammy were up for visitors, of course.  Plus, I had some hash brown casserole on hand already, and a bottle of watermelon mimosa from Aldi's (the greatest place to shop; if you haven't checked it out yet, you should!).  So I just fried up some bacon and sausage, scrambled some eggs, and took some cake balls that I'd been saving for Christmas out of the freezer.  Et voila!  Brunch is served.

They stayed for three or four hours.  The kids played like angels in our basement playroom while we chatted down there (it was one of those "don't say anything, don't look at them, we don't want to break the spell" situations!).

Then on a whim, we decided to watch one of our boys' childhood Christmas favorites, Jingle All the Way (which is so bad--so, SO bad!--that it's good!  Very funny!).

So even though we didn't get to go to the party we'd all been looking forward to, we had a lovely second Sunday of Advent here.  How about you?