A Christmas In Pictures

 Midnight.

 7:00 am.

 7:30 am.

 7:35 am

 8:30 am (it's not a gift, he just decided it was time to play the dulcimer)

 Wiz's first MP3 player

 Game Boy's Kindle (it'll come in handy in high school, right?)

Star Wars land speeder.

No other pictures of snoozing, watching movies, or eating dinner.  All of those took place, but aren't the most exciting of subjects.

It was a lovely Christmas.  We had a good time, and we enjoyed the day.

Now I'm tired.

Ready?

 New gift bags.

 New pajamas

 Camels wearing hats

 A tree with presents starting to collect underneath its branches.

Tamales ready for dinner.
Church in 1 and a half hours.

I think we're ready.

Christmas Dinner

We did something different this year for Christmas dinner. The boys requested Chinese turkey (yes, from that movie) but I couldn't find any. We went with goose, because it plays a big role in lots of stories (okay, so they are all versions of A Christmas Carol but that's okay). I forgot to take a picture of it.

Patiently waiting for the goose.
Poor Game Boy is just wasting away. We never feed him. Our menu was simple: goose, red cabbage with apples, and mashed potatoes. Of course we had wine. I think it might be illegal to not have wine with festive occasions here (ha!).Dessert was also new. (No creme brulee this year. We'll have it sometime though, because it's a once a year treat.) Instead we had chocolate lava cakes. Oh, my goodness. It was also amazing. What is really funny is that my cousin who lives in California, made it too. It's a keeper.

We Celebrated

The last time it was just us for Christmas was 2000. That Christmas was memorable for a few reasons. It was the year that The Collar broke his ankle (bad enough) and I was on bedrest during the pregnancy with the Wiz. Luckily, I'd been on bedrest for a while, so all our presents were bought on the internet that year.

The boys were able to stay in their pajamas all day. (They both got bottoms that had frogs on them this year.) The Collar told all the parents to let their kids come in their pajamas to church on the Christmas morning service, so they did!

We opened our stockings before church. The Wiz found a sock monkey in his stocking. The Collar found a key hole scarf.After church, we opened the other presents. The Wiz got a digital camera. He took a lot of pictures. I think that there are even pictures of me! Game Boy was REALLY excited. He got my old laptop. This means that he can play Spore, which the BBFs gave him. The Wiz is happy, because he can play on the desktop more, since Game Boy won't be hogging it all the time now. I'll post more later.

Christmas, Part II

I left off at brunch. After brunch, we really began to open our presents. I think that once the presents are under the tree, they breed or something.

I have some where upwards of 100 pictures, but I won't subject you to that! I'll just show you a few.

There is Game Boy in his Italian soccer club jersey (a huge hit--he actually stripped off his shirt to put it on) from his Aunt E and Uncle F. He also received a huge lego set with a Star Wars transport. That took him two days to build.

The Wiz is holding his Fur Berry, which turned out to be his favorite gift. It also smells nice, which led to some surreal/strange comments. G/G gave him a pot and saute pan which will last him forever. He's made himself eggs, already.

All of the adults received gifts too, but they are never as interesting as gifts for children.

When we were finished, The Collar hooked up our family Christmas gift (bigger and high definition tv--we watch lots of movies) and then everyone rested. I did so by chopping vegetables. There's something meditative about dicing, and I was able to listen to Sing You Sinners by Erin McKeown.

We ate an early dinner. The menu hasn't changed in 4 years. We had shrimp cocktail or pickled herring, pork tenderloin, swedish cabbage and apples, and roasted root vegetables. It's a very colorful meal. For dessert, we had creme brulee and then opened our crackers. The Collar's parents had to go home this year after dinner. After dinner, we went downstairs and watched A Christmas Story (our DVD, not TBS). It was a very nice day.

I hope that yours was nice too.

Christmas at Clever Name

We let the boys wake us up at 6:30 am. This is hard on us because the Collar never makes it home until after midnight. For some strange reason, I don't go to bed until he comes home. Next year, we aren't letting them get up until 7:00! Notice how chipper they are. There are no pictures of the grown ups because we hadn't had coffee yet.

The first thing they do is make rolls. They (The Collar, The BBFs, Game Boy, and The Wiz) all have cinnamon and/or orange rolls. This year I had gluten free scones. More importantly, I make a pot of coffee for the grown ups. This year, all four of us wore red pajamas for Christmas. My parents gave them to us. I have children who would wear pajamas all day long if I would let them. Generally my rule is you can't have lunch until you put on regular clothes. (I think that both boys will make fine college students.)

When the rolls are done, we move everything downstairs to the family room and eat breakfast and open our Christmas stockings. Our stockings this year were really great. All of us involved seemed to have a lot of luck finding really good things for our stockings. I didn't get too many pictures, because I was busy helping the Wiz.

Both boys had a great time. After we finished, we all dressed and went to the 10:00 am casual Christmas Eucharist. The Collar doesn't even wear clericals for this service. It's quite nice.

When that is over, we went home, and the Wiz helped me make egg, cheese, and sausage pie (crustless quiche). While that's baking, we opened more presents. I'll blog that later.

The Gear Up to Christmas

I'm behind. Here's a photo collection for our preparations to Christmas.

A stocking meatloaf
A Christmas treeFour finished pairs of socks. From left to right: The Wiz's socks, Game Boy's Socks, Eleanor Socks for MIL, and FIL's socks. I didn't finish the Collar's.

Cloth gift bags, since I'm tired of cutting down trees. (Well, not personally.)