Christmas finally arrived and Santa didn’t disappoint this year. Not only did everyone enjoy their gifts but we also had a very nice relaxing day with some beautiful weather. Even though we all agreed on Christmas Eve that we weren’t going to set a time to wake up Christmas morning AND the consensus was that 9am or 10am would be just fine, that didn’t seem to quite work out. Mom and Dad, unfortunately, woke up around their normal time (5-6am), but it was Sam who really got things going and was making sure everyone was downstairs by 8am. Luckily, Nana brought some champagne so Dad, Alex and Nana all started off the morning with mimosas. We then had a light breakfast, danish and/or ham biscuits while we opened presents. For Lunch we had Christmas pork loin with roasted potatoes and roasted carrots. Then to top it off we had a Yule log for dessert. We have lots of leftovers for dinner tonight and beyond, because we still have Salmon left over from our Christmas Eve/Feast of the Seven Fish dinner. To be fair we still haven’t been able to make 7 different dishes since we started this tradition a few years ago. This year’s feast was Grilled Salmon, homemade New England Clam Chowder, Lobster Crostini and boiled shrimp. Of course we had plenty of homemade cookies leftover and lots of sweeties from Santa to nibble on all weekend. We finished everything off on Boxing Day (Dec 26th) with breakfast dinner on the deck as it was 72° today.

Just for fun…..

Finally, we added some new lights this year on the Christmas tree. Generally, we will always have them on the traditional white lights, but we can liven things up if we want to… here is a sampling of some of the different effects.

We had another wonderful Thanksgiving this year as Nana came down for a visit (Gung Gung left for England a few days earlier) and Dad was actually at home before midnight this year. We had the traditional offerings for dinner, but we might have gone a little overboard on the Turkey this year. Nana did put together a very nice Turkey Tetrazzini on Saturday to make sure we finished all of the leftovers… it still took us a couple of more days to finish it all.

Since Thanksgiving was late this year, we decided to go get our Christmas tree the Sunday before Thanksgiving. All of being so busy, it was really one of the few times we all had time together, other than waiting until after the 1st week of December. This year’s tree was found by Sam and it was a beauty and probably the tallest one we have ever had since going back to real trees. It was so tall, that we didn’t even know if it was going to fit in the car (probably should have taken the trailer). Even after Dad cut several inches off the bottom we still needed more ceiling in the Den! Of course, we can’t add more ceiling so we might have to leave the Star off the tree this year.

Apparently Sam’s big hobbit feet need extra wide steel toed shoes to do his welding in because we had to make not one, but two trips to the foot doctor in November. Turns out he had an ingrown toenail on both feet. Dad was lucky enough to sit in on the first trip and snapped this photo. Sam didn’t want to see the operation so they put up the little curtain. Good thing too, because Dad said it looked really painful when the doctor stuck the needle in and wiggled it all around to numb his toe. After that it was all down hill to cut out the toenail, except, of course, he had to go back a couple of weeks later for the other toe. If that weren’t enough, Sam also got an ear infection from the ear plugs he wears during welding and that was another trip to the doctor. More antibiotics later and Sam is now fully recovered from both ailments. Of course, he did get another pair of shoes and new over the ear headphones especially designed for welders in the process.