Day & Becky, the Louisiana Haaland's: The Louisiana Haaland's ON-GOING Christmas 2008

The Louisiana Haaland Tree

For the first time in MANY years, Day will not be home for Christmas! This is going to be a serious adjustment for us, as we've spent Christmas together since we began dating. Add to that, Caleb will not be here either but staying at Ft. Bragg.....makes me very sad to not have my husband and both of my children with me but I do know that God's Grace will get me through this holiday season...and I still have Rachael.

So, we've been celebrating Christmas since mid-November! Circumstances brought Day's adult boys to Louisiana during November, so we were able to personally give them their gifts. We gave Knowlton, Christen and his wife, Marianne, Amy & Timothy IPhones for Christmas! To say they were excited does not even start to describe it! So, our first trip to the store was with Christen & Knowlton-we purchased all the phones but only gave the adult boys their gifts. Also gave Marianne's phone to Christen to deliver. On Thanksgiving weekend, everyone was back in town, including Marianne; they came to the house and we gave Amy and Timothy their phones. Amy had been without a phone for months-hers was broken. Timothy had been wanting a phone for several years so he was beyond happy. Day and I are just glad everything worked out that we could do this and actually be present when they received the phones.

Christmas Pika

Caleb was also home for Thanksgiving-on leave from the Army. We gave him his gift....a GPS so he could safely navigate back home to Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina. I spoke with him today and he is really using the GPS...he had finished Christmas shopping and was headed to the East Coast beaches, about 1-1/2 hours away from the base. He doesn't know it but we are giving him so additional cash nearer to Christmas and sent cash to Elisa over in Europe.

Day had a good surprise too....with the help of Bente, Day's cousin from Norway, I was able to FINALLY find him some new selskin slippers! His others were over 10 yrs old and ready for the trash...which is exactly where they ended up once he saw his new slippers! He really was surprised, especially since he was asking me about having his re-soled!!! I just love surprising people!!

Rachael is the only "child" who hasn't gotten her gift yet and since she will be home for Christmas, she gets to "wait." :-) She's getting a new Dell Laptop as her old Dell is, at the age of 5 yrs, near death. Being in nursing school, a computer is a necessity. And with the economy like it's been, I made a seriously GREAT deal! I can't wait for her to open it! Oh, and she's taken such good care of it, my good friend, Gail, will get it fixed up the best she can and Rachael is donating it to a needly college student.

So that's it for now....more pics and story to follow after the "real" Christmas!

The Haaland family with the IPhones