Ah! Christmas Memories!

I'm having a hard time readjusting to "normal" life.  Yes, our Christmas vacation was that good.  We ended up leaving a day earlier than planned to miss a monster storm moving across the U.S. (and we're glad we did), although that meant arriving in San Antonio in the middle of the night, or rather, early in the morning (3 a.m.).

Somehow, once we were up and enjoying everyone, we weren't too tired.

Deborah and Adam arrived from NYC about noon that same day, and the party was on.

Christmas brings out all the excesses, and sugar is definitely one of them!  Grandma Mildred sent us some of her candy rope, which we used to decorate a 3-tiered silver serving dish Catherine received as a wedding gift  11 years ago, but had never used.  As soon as one candy or cookie disappeared, there was more to take its place.

And now we're all swearing off sugar.  Excess leads to that!

Being with the grandkids was a great part of the week.  Putting together puzzles, small and large,

playing games like Mexican Train, Deborah's special version of Rummy, Rock Band, or other video games, going to movies, and even some shopping were all enjoyable.  

We found out that Adam is great at puzzles--must be his artistic training in photography.  

And we enjoyed putting together the nativity story.  Some participants were more willing than others.   Alastair was having none of being a wise man, until Grandpa became one too.  Brenna was thrilled to be the obvious choice for Mary.

 And Aaron was a good sport as always and played Joseph.  Even Lily got a part--as a lamb brought by the shepherds. Alice was an angel.  Elley was the innkeeper, complete with turban.

 There was also a lot of music.  We brought Deborah's old violin and the girls' violas, and there was often someone playing Christmas carols or preparing for Connor's baptism.

One of my favorite times was Adam on the violin, Deborah playing harmony on a viola, Alice or Elley on the other viola for a lower harmony, and Kevin improvising on the piano as they played through Christmas carols.l

 The other excess we indulged in was cheese.  There were some specialty cheeses Aaron had purchased at Thanksgiving that hadn't been opened so we brought them along.  I also found some great English, Irish and Danish cheeses at Aldi .  Deborah & Adam brought an aged goat cheese from Brooklyn.  It became the nightly tradition to have a bedtime snack of cheese and crackers as we stood around the island in the kitchen, laughing and enjoying the witticisms of Aaron, Adam, Deborah, and Catherine.

It made for some strange dreams, but a great memory!