Xmas 2010

I sit here writing this on the 1st day of the new year reflecting on this holiday season. I have to say that although a bit tumultuous, it's turned out pretty darned good. It's generally my practice to begin avoiding the public on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and I did a pretty good job of that. Beyond that, I really just focused on making sure that my girls, my wife, and I had a safe and enjoyable holiday season.

As has been my practice at some points along the way, I'll let the pictures tell the story.

First of all, a couple of days before Christmas Day, I went to the grocery store and got all the provisions I would need for the weekend:

On the 23rd, and into the day on the 24th we got about 7 inches of snow. The girls absolutely love playing in the snow so we did quite a bit of that.

On the 24th we mostly just sat around and played outside. It was a holiday day dialed up just like I like them. No plan, no agenda, nothing to do but whatever we wanted to do. One thing we did have to do is to prepare Santa's and his reindeers' snacks. Cookies for santa, carrots and pizza for the reindeer. Same ol' story.

The obligatory in front of the tree pic:

Ellen was up at 5:40am to make sure Santa didn't shaft her. She woke us up with elation that was not reciprocated but certainly appreciated. We tried to get her to lie back and were hoping for the best but she wasn't having it. She tried to contain herself but just couldn't, so we got up. We opened gifts and ate breakfast. Mara and Ellen were victorious:

Josey displayed her normal amount of enthusiasm:

Grampa and Gramma S braved the roads and got here just in time to put together some of the gifts that Mara got. Seemed like a good job for Gary, but eventually Pam stepped in and got the job done.

At Mara's request, the rudolph nose was trasported from Des Moines for her enjoyment albeit brief.

A bit later, the 5:40am wake up got the best of Ellen:

Mara decided to dig into the Xmas cookie trays. She kept stealing the chocolate kisses off the peanut butter cookies and putting the cookies back. One of those things you're not supposed to laugh at but it's pretty damn funny:

Later on we had a nice dinner of Roast Beef, sweet potatoes, veggies, bread, and a nice bottle of Sangiovese that my dad made. I really, really like this wine:

Later yet, we all sat down and watched National Lampoons Christmas vacation. This year Ellen even joined in on the viewing:

Later that night, we kinda sat around waiting for Brian and Jen and Annabelle to get here. Once they did get here, we did our best to empty the forementioned refridgerator. We didn't empty it, but we did pretty good.

The next day, we had the Schwartz Xmas at our house. I was wondering how the accomodations would work out and I'd say we did pretty good for having 9 people in our house. We spent a nice day just hanging out together. What we didn't do well at was getting photos. But we did get a good pic of all three girls eating dinner. Annabelle did really good sitting with the "big girls".