Christmas 2011

After celebrating the holiday with my sisters the weekend of the 18th, Santa visited our house on the evening of the 22nd so that we could have a core family Christmas, in our home, and cultivate our very own traditions, before driving to South Dakota to be with Allan’s family.  Not that I don’t enjoy the traditions we have with our extended families, perhaps this is selfish of me, but I want our very own.  And so, we did.  Allan and I stayed up late and put together two red rider (or radio flyer) tricycles, stuffed stockings with slinkys, wind up snowmen, and little critters. 

Avery came out of her room “Christmas” morning, stood at the top of the steps into the livingroom and said, “Oh, a Trike!”  What?  How does she know what a trike is and that the word for trike is “trike”? 

They were both very excited and knew just what to do.

While the girls took laps around the livingroom, I put together a little Christmas Morning Breakfast.  In planning for this, I considered doing candy cane shaped pancakes with peppermint ice cream, then realized no one in our family likes pancakes, so we went with a standard favorite: scrambled eggs with tomatoes (red) and cilantro (green), links, and tree shaped buttered toast.  MMMM!

Then, before morning naps, we loaded up and headed for Grandma and Grandpa’s house!  We thought that the girls would take advantage of the three hour drive and sleep, but this lasted until we hit Amish Country near Ashland.

So, we had to improvise and entertain with puzzles, books, dolls, and scarf hammocks.

We showed up a day early and surprised Allan’s parents… By “surprised” I mean “caught off guard”, so a few presents, like the above tea set were played with upon arrival.

Avery took over Grampa Al’s TV.

And my husband hung around looking handsome as ever.  Sadly, Allan’s Grandma had a bad night, and had to be taken to the emergency room on Christmas Eve.  Which left Allan and I and our teenage nephew to pull together Christmas dinner.  And really, despite the sad circumstances regarding Grandma, we had s great time getting things ready for when everyone returned from the hospital.

We went through every cupboard and closet in the house, and could not find a table cloth, so we foraged in my mother-in-laws sewing room and found this great piece of flannel.  We stole bulbs and greenery off of the tree.  We cooked a prime rib, had a deviled-egg cook-off (nephew won, NO ONE would touch mine: Jalapeno, bacon and cilantro.  More for me.), played farkle and even had time to…

…make Christmas butter molds!!

In the end, Grandma was just stressed and had an upset stomach, so she stayed and rested in the hospital.

After dinner and baths, the girls opened presents.  By this time they were old hands at the task.  And look at the cool elephant they got!

You’s a fine mutha-f*cka, why don’tcha back that ass up!  What?? How did that get in here?

Christmas Day was full of lovely little tea parties.

Naughty and nice drama pageant.

And finally some relaxing in front the of the tv, in the midst of all of our new toys!

What a lovely holiday!!