Mmm...gingerbread cookies!

Merry Christmas!     The Advent festivities continued with good times for all! Daddy even had several weeks off from work. We baked lots of cookies, participated in our street's December potluck/cookie exchange, took a walk around the neighborhood to admire Christmas lights and catch the Jeep Parade of Lights (30 jeeps all decked out!), went to the zoo with home school friends, celebrated Lion's birthday with chocolate cupcakes and new Wii games (Mario Kart is highly popular), conquered a 5-mile hike, and lit the third Advent candle at church followed by the girl's playing their Silent Night trio at church. So much fun!

A few shots from our hike of Aiea Loop Trail:

This was a rare Christmas when we didn't visit both extended families. We did, however, have the joy of hosting Aunt E and picking her up from the airport Christmas morning! Our Christmas celebrations were a combination of traditions from both sides of the family. On Christmas Eve, we made and ate tamales along with a smorgasbord of homemade cookies when we returned from our church's Christmas Eve service. Christmas morning began with sweet rolls and stockings from "Nana Claus," then a video chat with Nana herself while I picked up Aunt E. Once we returned, we had another round of stockings the way my family does them (each person sneaks a small gift into everyone's else's stockings), then enjoyed my family's Christmas morning foods (coffee cake, breakfast casserole, and citrus) for brunch. We spent the afternoon opening presents, video chatting with the other side of the family, and enjoying our gifts. Dinner was the next evolution of my family's seafood-in-liquid tradition: here in the tropics I went with moqueca, a coconut milk-based seafood stew. 

Everybody loves brunch!

We helped Lion solve her Christmassy Star Wars puzzle,
then E and Bug battled it out with Battleship.