It's Christmas! It's Christmas!

Snow had fallen in the night, giving us a white Christmas.
I was up first in the house at 7am, the 'yipee!' feeling of Christmas keeping me from sleeping until the boys' "it's OK to wake adults up for presents" appointed time of 8am.
Nana was feeling better and ready to rejoin the living.
Everyone was so happy about their gifts, which is always the best part of Christmas for me since I have a hard time containing my excitement to give them the second they are purchased.
Facetime gave us the clear picture while chatting and opening Lewis-Conlin gifts that Skype could not, making it feel like Leah and Jason were with us for just a bit of the day.
Christmas feasting was hearty and happy: strata, beef stew, homemade challah, and goodies galore!
A quiet day spent in time together, discovering, exploring and playing with new toys, relaxing and letting the world shrink to the size of just our little home....
It was truly a merry Christmas for the Chaos!

White Christmas!  Hooray!

All Tommy wanted for Christmas was "Croc with his boat."  Santa delivered!!

Only Luke could look so cute and happy holding a bunch of Christmas socks.

OK, guys, together now, one...two...three...TEAR!

New Nooks for all!

Adam's big gift...

...tickets to see Les Miserables on stage in Denver when the tour comes in May!

Merry Christmas, Ruby!

Feeling SO much better,  not 100%, but much, much better.

Josh finds the Christmas Pickle!

Ben made Luke an origami Yoda

A new-to-him iTouch for Ben with a new screen protector and case.  It looked brand new!

A helmet camcorder for Z

The boys only got one Wii game this year, Skylanders Giants, from Grandma and Grandpa.  It was the only one they REALLY wanted!

And a Kindle Fire for Adam and I

This was the phone pic I took to text to Aunt Sara to show her the boys with the things she sent.  Adam is such a spaz!

See, Papa, you fold there, and then there, and you have a full-size origami car that really drives.  No problem.

We picked out this necklace for my mom from one of the roadside Native American craft fairs in Arizona.  She loves it!

What to make first?!

So we went a little Angry Birds crazy in replacing the red bird hat he generously gave away.

A new Papa hat!

A lot of Lego guys just for Luke.  He only ever wants the sets so he can have the guys, so we bought him a couple of small sets and then a box full of ONLY guys!

The boys out in the White Christmas...brrrr!  It was about 18 degrees!  Did you get your picture?  Can we go back inside now, Mom and Nana?

Josh waiting for the shrinky dinks to shrink!

Online origami tutorials--Ben's favorite pastime.

So happy to have Nana back among us!

Tommy the Collector, already taking other people's gifts (pictured here in Josh's hat).  He was kind of overwhelmed by the abundance of new toy options, so he went for simple and played with his new toothbrush and toothbrush holder almost all day long.

Following Christmas we had a couple of extra days with my parents.  We took it pretty easy, since my mom was still recovering and lacked a bit of her usual Nana energy.  But that doesn't mean we were idle!  We made a few returns and exchanges.  We had a lunch out at sushi to satisfy our sushi-loving men (we had the sushi-free bento boxes), saw two movies over the two days (Lincoln and Les Miserables--both excellent), celebrated my dad's 65th birthday--a couple of weeks early--with dinner out at the Elephant Bar, and my mom and I got much-needed pedicures.

The good part is the coming, the bad part is the going.  We all miss them already! 

Christmas Eve 2012

Christmastime is such a special time.  I love how the comfort and happiness of family traditions and the inner stillness found in personal faith converge during this special season, culminating in two days of peace, joy and celebration together.  This year I think the traditions and togetherness felt even more significant with all of the health concerns for my dad so fresh in our lives.  It was good to be together.  That was all I found that I wanted for Christmas...to be with my family.

This Christmas was sweet and happy, even though my mom came down with a stomach bug on Christmas Eve morning during our last minute shopping stops and she spent the rest of the day sick or sleeping.  My dad thinks it was altitude sickness.  I am pretty certain that her illness came from getting splashed by nasty raw turkey water the night before when the turkey was put in the brine and she, Adam and my dad thought that cannonballing the turkey into the pot would be a good idea (hahaha! ew).  My mom insists it was something a colleague brought to work.  While she slept, feeling horrible, and us along with her for her suffering and our missing of her, we spent the day *trying* to have a good time without her, it was hard, but we managed to carry on.  Adam took on the roasting of the turkey because it had to be prepped and put in the oven while I was out with my mom before she realized that her tummy troubles were more than just grumbles.  In addition to that, Mr. Chef cooked us up some tasty aebelskivers for brunch...my hands-down favorite food tradition of all seasons and holidays!

We watched some holiday movies (The Polar Express, Miracle on 34th Street and It's A Wonderful Life), dropped off the secret Santa gifts, feasted on turkey, stuffing, asparagus, rolls and peppermint pie, and opened Christmas Eve pajamas (by this time Nana was feeling just a teensy bit better, enough to sit up, and opened hers too).  We postponed the opening of Nana and Papa stockings until the morning when my mom could join us.  Before the boys went to bed we read the Christmas story and put out cookies for Santa, then we tucked in our little sugar plums for the night.  I remember it taking hours to fall asleep on Christmas Eve, my sister and I giddy with excitement and anticipation.  My boys don't seem to suffer from this problem and were snoring away pretty quickly.

We had a chance to skype with Adam's family to wish Adam's dad, Dan, a very happy birthday and participate in the annual family book club picks.  I made strata for Christmas morning breakfast, and then the frantic final wrapping of gifts and stuffing of socks began!  We finished before midnight, a first for us I think, but we all had a hard time wanting to go to bed.  Snow was falling outside, quiet Christmas music was playing, it was still and lovely and peaceful...too perfect to call it a night just yet.  So we talked quietly and made some hard boiled eggs for those who might not be interested in strata and watched the snow collect on the ground before turning off the lights and calling it a night (morning?) just before 1am on Christmas Day.   

This is a copy of our old family recipe.  We laugh at that picture every year: "Look, Olga, Helga is putting water from the pump into the teacup!  Let's all point!"

YES, PLEASE!

Sick Nana. :(

But the boys set a place for her anyway so she could be with us in spirit.

Good thing none of the Bumpus dogs were around to steal our bird!  YUM!

The boys took on the job of setting of the table beautifully!

One, two, three...CHRISTMAS CRACKERS!

New jammies!!!

Nana returns to the living long enough to open her Christmas Eve jammies.  And she's even smiling!

Reading the story of the FIRST Christmas...and why we celebrate.

Cookies for Santa!

Skyping with the Conlins!  Fun!

Still, still, still....