Merry Christmas - 2010

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve down on the Cape with Ed, Carole, Drew, Emma, and Carole's mom, June. It was nice to hang out with them, play some games, decorate Christmas cookies, and go to Carole's church for their Christmas service. This is the second year in a row we have crashed their Christmas eve, if they aren't careful it is likely to turn into a tradition for us. June was kind enough to have a puzzle for Elise and Ed and Carole gave her a fun Cranium activity with funny masks and voice modulator, a game called Chicky Boom, glowing magic wand and Drew gave her a santa toy. She was delighted to have presents to open on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning was nice. Elise slept in past 8am, which was nice and was super exited, but took her time opening her presents. She was also very excited for Kurt and I to open our presents. Santa came through again with great wrapping. He found this great German ribbon that makes bows look like fireworks and it looked great on the white paper, which is his signature wrapping at our house.

Bill and Louise came over for dinner at about 1:30pm. We had crudites with a buttermilk dip (which was more like a dressing) and a signature cocktail (Christmas punch) to start and then a roasted beet salad with spinach and arugula and then the main course of braised short ribs, herbed mashed potatoes, and carmalized carrots and parsnips (which were unfortunately over carmelized, bordering on charred). I made the short ribs in the slow cooker on Friday and just had to re-heat them, I thought they turned out pretty well for it being my first time. They could have had a bit more flavor, next time I think I will marinate them in red wine over night as some of the recipes I read suggested. Rather than bake another thing, I decided to make a red currant gingersnap parfait, which turned out pretty good. Elise even ate some of the spare ribs, which was a surprise.

Elise got a set of 3 pairs of high heel shoes, some clothes, art supplies, some small Playmobile sets, an elefun playdoh game, Guess what I am game, Enchanted Forrest game, an I spy snap game, some fingernail polish and stickers from us and Santa. Nanny and Grandpa brought over for her a unicorn pillow pet (she has named Nika), a necklace set, skateboard and bicycle Playmobile set. The nice ladies from afternoon Weycare gave her a cute little Winnie the Pooh puzzle. Nika was kind enough get her a necklace set and Ann at work got her a very cool cat that you can color and then wash off and re-color. She will be taking tennis and swimming starting in January so we are also considering that as part of her Christmas. All in all she was very happy and we are grateful that she was not dissapointed partially because there wasn't anything too specific that she was asking for that was too big. She has however already been reminding us that she would really like a microscope for Christmas next year if she doesn't get one for her birthday in July.

Pre-Christmas Activity

For my birthday Kurt was sweet enough to give me a daytrip down to Newport. We should have thought to leave Elise with Nanny and Grampa so as to have seen more than one of the mansions, but it was a beautiful day and Elise did pretty well. We ended up just going to see Marble House, which has a really neat Chinese tea house on the grounds. Lunch wasn't great but it was close and quick. The next morning we decided to brave the lines and head over to Jordan's furniture in Avon for the Enchanted Village. We were lucky to have arrived about a half hour before it opened because the line was really growing. She enjoyed it when they turned on the snow and it was fun to see all the "automaticals." I decided that I could take some time off from work so I took all of the week before Christmas and I already get the week between Christmas and New Years off so it is a nice two week vacation for me. Since Elise was still in school through Wednesday I got some much cherised time to myself (mostly cleaning and window shopping). But Elise and I did manage to fit in some fun on Thursday by going bowling (both candlepin and 10-pin) and working on a project for Grandma and Nanny's birthdays, which are coming up at the end of January. Elise has had a hard time going to bed with all the excitment of Santa's visit coming up so soon.

Getting Ready for the Holidays

Contrary to what you may think as I haven't posted anything in ages, November and December have been plenty busy for us. We had a great Thanksgiving down on the Cape courtesy of Ed and Carole and enjoyed seeing the Eichners/Clarkes/Sandbergs. We managed to get over to the Christmas Tree Farm in Canton and hang out with Bob and Erika as they picked their tree. Of course by Friday, most of the family was ill with a stomach bug, which hit Kurt and Elise, but fortunately I managed to avoid it, which didn't mean I didn't catch a terrible cold a few days later and stayed home from work. We were however, up and running for our Gingerbread House outing (or inning) with our good friend from work, Nika. I had grandoise ideas about making my own gingerbread and assembling two houses the day before, but that didn't happen and we managed with grahm crackers and left over Halloween candy (sadly we still have a huge bag full). We started the day going to pick up Nika at the Harvard ceramics program holiday sale, which was great and I managed to find nice mugs for Kurt and Elise. Then we hung out in the apartment making the gingerbread houses before heading back to Cambridge for the Holiday carol service at Memorial Church, our second year in a row. Elise still prefers the kids activities downstairs to the music upstairs, but we will try it again next year.