Merry Christmas!

As usual we celebrated Christmas twice and got to enjoy all the traditions with both Daddy's and Mommy's families.

Mmmm....meat.....

This year we hosted Daddy's family for Christmas-on-Christmas. People trickled in the Saturday before Christmas, and the girls and I made our gingerbread cookies that afternoon. That evening the whole crowd headed to a Brazilian steakhouse for dinner. So much good food! Just the salad bar had a selection of international and gourmet foods for the girls to try--like artichoke hearts (👎), toasted provolone (👍), and mocequa (👍). Then came the meats! (Never been to a Brazilian steakhouse? Dinner consists of a nearly constant stream of waiters offering a tantalizing variety of meats on long skewers straight off the fire.) All the girls enjoyed it, but Lion was in hog heaven. She gave an enthusiastic "Yes!" to every waiter that came by, I think she also consumed four fried bananas, and still had room for Christmas cookies when we got home!

The tamale-making process has begun!
(Everyone else joined us shortly.)

On Christmas Eve, we all got up to attend a lessons and carols service at our church, followed by an appetizer brunch. The girls got to wear their Christmas finery, sing, listen to the Christmas story and carols, and eat more good food. The rest of day was spent hanging out with family and making and eating tamales. Mmmmm... This was our second year making them ourselves and once again it was a delicious success! Bedtime on Christmas Eve means new PJs and a Christmas story with Nana.

I put three very excited girls to bed that night, and Christmas morning did not disappoint. "Nana Clause" is always good to us all! That afternoon the girls tried out their new outside toys, watched Miracle on 34th Street, and nibbled on more Christmas goodies until dinnertime.

At some point in the midst of the Christmas afternoon happiness, poor Monkey came down with a stomach bug and spent the rest of the evening in bed. Fortunately, everybody was going home the next day, I had several low key days planned before our next Christmas, and her bug only lasted 24 hours.

I think this is the closest we came to getting everybody
in one photo.

Second Christmas was a historic event for Mommy's family--the whole crowd was there! Grandma & Granddad, the six siblings, four spouses, and seven grandkids! Even Aunt E, who lives in Japan, got to come! The girls were so excited about getting to play with cousins. They all spent a lot of time in the basement playroom this visit instead of outside because we were in the midst of record-breaking single digit temperatures. (We also had to deal with a frozen pipe and a temporary power outage later in the week.) In fact, the girls even made use of the large unfinished space to enlist Uncle P in a skateboard tutorial (Monkey got one for Christmas). Bug and Lion brought their skates, so they could roll around too. The girls and the grown ups played lots of games too--many rounds of CodeNames, Aggravation, and Cribbage.

Three generations decorating gingerbread cookies!

All the usual traditions happened here too. We started off the weekend making ALL the cookies! The girls did a great job pitching in to decorate and dip them. Traditional Christmas meals with this family are soup and characuterie for Christmas Eve and a formal Christmas breakfast of casserole, Jesus birthday (coffee) cake, and citrus. We filled each others stockings--it's getting to be quite a haul with this growing crowd, and this year we even got fun Japanese things! Taking turns opening gifts fills the rest of the morning, and it's always fun to have everybody in one place.

Cousins!

Once again--the germs struck on Christmas afternoon. Aunt E and Potato had already been feeling under the weather with a respiratory thing, but then Grandma and Aunt A got the stomach bug Monkey had the week before! (The rest of us started obsessively washing hands and praying it didn't take out anybody else.)

Our family plus Aunt E left Friday morning, stopped by Nana and Papa Bear's house to pick up the venison that was finally processed, joined them for lunch, and headed home to even more excitement--6 or 8 inches of snow and frozen pipes. We had cold water downstairs only. The upstairs bathrooms and the hot water didn't thaw out until Sunday afternoon when the outside temperature finally reached above freezing. The girls had a blast playing in the snow though, while I stayed nice and warm inside and made cinnamon rolls from scratch. Mmmmm.... Aunt E got to spend a few more days with us resting, having good conversations, sitting by the fire, watching movies, and eating more good food. (She now has a cultural story to take back to her Japanese friends--eating three meals of venison that her brother-in-law shot himself!)

The girls were so excited to get bundled up and play in the snow!

Less than a week later, it's 70 degrees outside, the girls are
wearing shorts, and there's still snow on the ground!

Overall, we had a lovely Advent and Christmas season. Now that the holidays are over and the big girls are back to homeschooling, it's time to figure out what the new normal looks like!