Christmas 2009

Lian's class holiday party. The kids performed several songs and then had treats and gifts.

The world's cutest elf!

An impromptu carol sing at church coffee hour. The risers were out for rehearsal of the pageant.

Caroling, caroling we will go. First stop was the nursing home where grandma is getting rehab. The residents loved to see the kids.

The group got bigger as we went on. Then we went to several homes to sing and finished up at the parish hall for hot chocolate and cookies. Then I went to work - the nativity figurines had to come out of storage in the attic above the church office, best accomplished out of business hours.

Saturday I went out for the Audubon Christmas Bird Count, a citizen science project that's been going on for over 100 years. It was in the 20's and my patrol is the shore line, just where the wind is whipping in. It was not a great day, 100 species were spotted, but with a blizzard on its way, many birds were hunkered down or fueling up at backyard feeders. The total numbers were up due to huge flocks of Greater Scaup out on the bays, over 20,000 birds. We did have some unusual sightings. Four lingering Great Egrets, way past their normal fall departure date. The snow started to fly about 2 so the Count ended early.

Then over Saturday night it really snowed, 1 foot of snow on the Sally meter. When I let Sally the dog out Sunday morning, the snow was up to her belly, 12". Lian likes to help shovel. Lela likes to eat snow with maple syrup and was out gathering several bowl fulls to store in the freezer.

The Christmas pageant was supposed to be on Sunday the 20th, but was nixed by the blizzard, so it joined the 5pm Family Xmas eve service. Lela and Lian were Silent Stars. It was a chaotic affair as rehearsal was 30 minutes before the pageant which had now been transposed from the parish hall to the church, and had to share quarters with the “Miracle of Christmas Orchestra” assembled from about anyone who can play an instrument – also with about 30 minutes of rehearsal. .

Lela led the stars down the aisle.

It was a wonderful, warm service, overflowing with kids, laughter and love.

There was also a visit from Santa after the service (once his suit and beard had been located.)

We had take out Chinese for Xmas dinner as putting on a meal was beyond my capacity at that point. Lela dragged out the evening by making gift drawings for Santa and insisting that we offer him left over take out as he might be sick of cookies by the time her got to our house, but was finally asleep about 9. Then Jamie and I wrapped until the wee hours. I got up at 4:30 and wrapped some more, including a trip up to Chris’s house to make sure Santa had done a good job.

The girls slept in until nearly 7. Stockings had overflowed onto the couch (Santa shops all year and sometimes forget that there is already a massive bag of stuff in the closet) Jamie and I finished wrapping family gifts and Christy brought Chris home for the day (she is in a rehab center recovering from a fall.) Then we got the dinner fixings together and finally arrived about 10:30am.

Organized handout of gifts went by the wayside and L & L ripped into the huge pile under the tree with glee.

Big hits were new dress up (Snow White for Lian, winter Belle for Lela) and cameras, REAL Canon (of course) cameras from Christy. We were all photographed many, many times.

The wreckage.


Dinner was ham under a volcanic coating of inspired left over cranberry glaze (1 bag of aging cranberries from the back of the crisper, an equally aged apple, cored, peeled, cut up, 1 clementine, grated rind and juice, about ? 1/2c brown sugar, juice from a can of pineapple, ginger, clove, mustard to taste, simmer until it’s thick paste. Squish the berries to make it smooth.) Sweet potatoes that failed to cook in the oven but were soft in under 2 minutes in the new super duper microwave, accompanied by green beans (because I forgot about the Brussels sprouts and fennel in the fridge), salad and finished off with pumpkin pie, Christy's apple cake and 3 kinds of ice cream. Eggnog ice cream and pumpkin pie is mum, mum good. Having had 3 hours of sleep I was ready for a nap.

This is our tree. It's a fake, obviously. It was left over from the church fair, and I thought, "well, the cats won't bother it and it's small, so lets try it." I didn't know you could get a Charlie Brown fake tree, but here it is.