12.27.09
Christmas 2009
Just waiting for Brian to finish up with his breakfast before heading out. In the meantime I thought I’d update with a belated Merry Christmas wish to all! Hope it was great. We had a nice simple one, and as usual, I loved it. As I’ve mentioned before, our family starts to celebrate each Christmas with a Christmas dinner at my parents’ house. But first we start cooking at home. This year I got a nice group of helpers and couldn’t resist taking this picture of them.
Aaron was helping to form the pie crusts, Andrew was mixing the cookie dough, and Brian must have been washing something.
Here’s a pic of my sisters and me after we stuffed ourselves.
Then we all hang about with each other until midnight when we open all our Christmas gifts. Until then we occupy our time eating and yakking and whatever we drum up for entertainment. This year the boys gave us a little performance. We took their keyboard and Chinese zither to my parents’ house this Christmas eve. Here’s Matty playing for us.
Then it was Aaron’s turn.
Aaron also played the keyboard for us. Since he has progressed so nicely, we got him a new upgraded keyboard for Christmas.
A few Christmases ago Matty and Aaron were working on making puppets for a play for us. The year before the boys made a play with hand puppets and we all had a blast with it. So this time they worked so hard on it for most of that summer, then Matty hurt his ankle badly and never finished all his puppets. The partially finished puppets sat in the closet for a couple years, and this year he remembered them and brought one of his puppets to share with the clan. It’s supposed to be a dragon, but it’s a bit skinny, ha! And my dad said that the poor thing looks “scary,” and should be for Halloween instead of Christmas, ha! But they had fun playing with it, anyway.
Here’s a closer shot of this monster creature. Well, it’s not supposed to be a monster. Matty was into dragons at the time, and that’s what it was supposed to be.
Matty said that he was anxious for Christmas because there were “presents that needed opening.” Ha ha! As every Christmas eve, it zoomed by, and in no time it was time to open the presents. Then after all that hard work. . . heheheh, it was time to eat some more. Desserts are always good at this time.
Afterward we watched a rental until past 2AM, and then called it a night. So another Christmas gone by. . .
Here’s a pic of my family that night. We generally take the Christmas family pic at my parents’ house because we don’t usually put up a tree at our house. This year the little stuffed tree I have was given to me by one of my knit group pals.
As usual, our family Christmas is casual. Years ago we used to get more dressed up, but as time has gone on, we’ve decided it’s much more comfortable to wait until midnight in casual wear.
Oh, and one final picture I wanted to share is of a couple items my Isle of Man friends sent to me. It’s a cute little Santa that I set on my mantle at home as well as a little Merry Christmas pillow.
So now the calm before the next storm–New Year eve! In case I don’t get a chance to update before the new year. . . HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Marlakins
