Catching up: Christmas 2010

Better late than never, here's the record that we actually celebrated Christmas in 2010.

I can't go a year without trying to get a picture of all the children in front of the tree, a tradition I should cease since it inevitably leads to tears (not exclusively the children's either) and a desire for bloodshed. Nonetheless, I still can't give up on this effort, every year thinking that this will be the time it actually works.  And while I don't love them during the photo-taking process, my love always returns that evening once they're in bed, soundly asleep and looking as precious as ever.

This year we got to stay home and Auntie Kami and Sha-sha came to us.  Kami hadn't even had a full day in NY after flying in from Oakland when she was willing to brave the holiday traffic on Amtrak and come down.  She even brought me a personal selection of treasures from the Berkeley Bowl. It was a very Merry Christmas to me already.

On Christmas Eve we went out on a hike to the arc-corner monument at the border of Delaware and Pennsylvania on the Mason Dixon trail.

That night we actually built a fire and had some hot cocoa and story time followed by a reading of the Nativity story.  

As for Christmas Day.........

I made this stuffed pumpkin for the Christmas dinner, and it turned out as fabulously as the recipe promised.  Everything else was pretty darn good too.  It may have been my least stressed-out Christmas dinner ever.

For the Christmas-movie-of-the-year, Adam got Fantastic Mr. Fox and we even managed to convince Kami to watch it--even though it is (gasp!) animated, and therefore certain to be unbearably insipid--and she admitted to liking it.

Kami and Sharon spent a lot of time with the Kindle looking like this.

 We let Max stay up late that night and play games with the grown-ups. It might have been the best night of his life, he was so high with happiness. And he holds his own pretty well in Quiddler and is a superstar in Rummicub.

The day after Christmas was the first big snow of the season.  We've had snow on the ground ever since.  The kids spent a good part of the rest of the winter break outside playing and sledding.

 Thanks to the snow it took Sharon and Kami something like 9 hours to get back to NYC on the train. Too bad we couldn't have just kept them for one more day to avoid all of that.  Otherwise, it was a fab time for all.