The "Quick Christmas Summary" Continued

Christmas Day- We woke up to our traditional breakfast of bagels with cream cheese and/or apple butter and fruit. When we finished, Dad read the Christmas story aloud before we opened our gifts. We have to keep our priorities straight, you know. Once again, last minute gifts needed to be wrapped{please someone tell me we’re not the only people who do this}but finallyeveryone was ready in the livingroom. Everyone but Daniel, that is. His not being there{he was with Erika’s family}was the only other sad part of our Christmas. There was a Daniel-sized spot left on the couch but it was too sad to look at so we covered it with blankets and pillows.

Dad always hands out the gifts one at a time so we can all see and discuss it. It was discovered this year that certain people{ahem, Elizabeth}have an aversion to using to/from labels which resulted in people calling out ‘oh, thats my gift to so-and-so’ whenever Dad held up an unlabeled gift. It reminded me of some sort of auction.

One of my very favorite gift this year was from Andrew. He gave me a black hangable jewelry box with four spots for pictures on the front. As soon as I had the wrapping paper off he started telling me to take it out of its box and when I did I almost started to cry. Ok, I did cry but only a little. He had put four black and white pictures of the two of us in every spot. I was so touched! It means so much to me because I’ve always been the closest to him of all my siblings, and he knew how much I would love something like that. My other favorite gifts were what I blogged about here, and the beautiful You are My Sunshine print from Pretty Smitten. Grandpa used to sing that song to me so its very special.

Once again, all the good pictures are on Andrews camera so these will have to do until he gets home and I can post them.

Dad is one of those super hard to buy for types, but I found this very unique plant in watering gel with those little glass rocks you put in fish tanks suspended in it at a garden shop and thought it was perfect{if slightly weird{that was also a weird sentence}}.

I just realized those are the only presentable pictures I have from Christmas morning so I’m putting this one of Elizabeth and Daniel from the night before just ‘cause its really sweet.

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For our traditional Christmas dinner we went to Auntie Carol’s. Our menu was, and always is, antipasto{the real kind, not that fake stuff they sell in stores},chicken soup, then ravioli and meatballs, followed lastly by roast beef with potatoes and carrots. I love Christmas dinner; its so nice seeing everyone dressed up and just enjoying being together.

We never have anything specific we do after Christmas dinner; we mostly just talk and play with the kids new toys{this is always best at Molly and Zach’s house because they get the BEST toys}.Molly entertained us by singing songs about bears,princesses, and numbers into her new microphone; and the boys wrested on the floor{was that their way of showing Christmas love and cheer?}; and the aunts sat around the table to discuss next Christmas dinner{because thats just what Italians do-talk about a meal 364 days from now}. Let it be said here and now: I love my family!

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When we got home, we opened our stockings. This is the stocking situation in our family: Dads is the biggest, Moms is the longest and always has the most gifts inside, Daniels is the fuzziest, Andrews has little beads sewn around the top edge, mine is, hands-down, the cutest, and the twins stockings match. They are after all, twins. After that, we all cozied up on the couch in our new pajamas and robes for a movie marathon. We watched a movie about the origins of Christmas in others countries, Mr Hobbs Goes on Vacation, starring James Stewart{why,why couldn’t I have been old enough to marry him?}and three episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show{he would also have been totally fine to marry had we been the same age}. And so we finished our Christmas celebrations by going to bed on December 26th.

It was a wonderful Christmas.