Merry Christmas 1!

We celebrated  our first Christmas Daddy's family this year. The clan gathered at Aunt S and Uncle J's house, and we loved getting to see everybody! As usual the girls had a blast in the basement. I know that sounds weird, but it's a big, finished space with plenty of room for them to spread out and do their own thing while the grown ups chit chat upstairs. On this visit the grown ups spent a lot of time looking through several boxes of ancestral memorabilia. We found some really neat information and other things (the girls' great-grandfather's diaries, military ribbons, and such from his Army days in WWII, for example). Of course, none of this was of much interest to three little girls, although they did have fun getting to each choose a quilt to take home from a pile of quilts made by their great-great grandmother (if I remember that correctly). For additional around the house entertainments, the girls got in lots of snuggle time with Nana and Papa Bear, watched the BFG (while Mommy and Daddy went to see Rogue One), introduced Daddy's family to the hilarity of Home, and went for a walk on a lovely wooded trail through the neighborhood.

As usual Lion's birthday was part of the festivities!
She got her requested chocolate cupcakes and opened a few presents. The celebration continued the next day by satisfying her current Edgar Degas obsession and visiting the National Gallery to see his sculptures, including the "Little Dancer," on display. We perused a few more of the Impressionist and sculpture galleries, then headed across the Mall to the Air and Space museum, where the girls wanted to see the space ships and learn about the planets.

This wasn't a Degas work, but it was still a favorite.

One evening during out stay we all went out for a night of fine dining. The girls were very excited about getting dressed up and going to a fancy restaurant. Afterwards we took a turn through a Christmas market across the street. This year we also added to the family tradition of eating tamales on Christmas Eve by making our own. The assembly didn't take long with so many hands rolling, and they were delicious!

Tamale makers hard at work

It's officially Christmas Eve with new Christmas PJs and a
Christmas storybook!

Christmas morning itself was full of presents and lots of fun! This year the combination of our kids not believing in Santa Claus and Nana being a gift-giving person led to their referring to her as "Nana Claus." At some point Christmas night, Bug told me, "I'm glad we have a Nana Claus instead of Santa Claus, because she actually knows us and loves us. Santa only knows if you've been bad or good." Then Lion piped up, "And Santa can only get you what you ask him for. Nana can get you ANYTHING!"

One of the things "Nana Claus" brought: WhomBatz!
(AKA: "Foam things to hit people with!")

Our trip back home involved a pit stop at the Richmond capitol building and grounds. Thanks to our digging through the family history over Christmas we discovered we're related to one of the gentlemen memorialized with a statue on the grounds. We even had time for a self-guided tour of the building itself before hitting the road again.