Merry Christmas!

I hope that all of our friends and family had a wonderful Christmas. For us the fun started last Friday. I took the day off (I had just enough vacation left to get me through the year!) and Jess was already home. She’s down to the last partial week of maternity leave. We spent most of the weekend finalizing Christmas stuff like wrapping presents and taking last trips to the store (separately) with Phoebe for some supplemental shopping. On Monday, Phoebe went to school for a while, and the parents (plus Benjamin) hung around the house. I rode over to pick her up from school via the bike (a pleasant surprise that she really liked) at about 4:00, and we raced home for dinner and baths. Mom insisted that everyone get cleaned up for the Christmas Eve service at church. As is our tradition, we went to the latest service available (7:00 this year) and saw a bunch of our friends. We even managed a family portrait in front of the tree before church, and Phoebe and mommy obliged daddy’s photographic impulse for some posed shots afterward. We put out some cookies for Santa, enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate and a little snack, and then shuffled off to bed. Here is a sampling of the fruits of our labor:

The next morning, both Jess and I awoke with some sort of stomach bug. Jess was a bit nauseated, but I avoided that issue for one more-or-less opposite in nature. Nevertheless, we toughed it out and had a wonderful Christmas. Phoebe, as predicted, needed to be awakened. I had headed downstairs to stoke up the fire and shovel the drive (we had a white Christmas this year with about 2-3 inches falling on Christmas Eve), but was summoned back up as Phoebe was a bit sad and needed Daddy.

We decided everyone should get to stay in PJs (if they want), and eventually made our way downstairs. Santa had indeed come and left our stockings full. He also ate the cookies we left out and replaced them with a short thank you. Everyone got some cool stuff from Santa. Phoebe got some streamers for her Strider bike, Benjamin got some disposable bibs and a pair of rattles, mommy got a new bike computer, and I got a new LED lantern that we can all use in the tent when next we go camping. We all got oranges (even Benjamin) and some new bike socks.

After we finished the stockings, I cooked us a nice camp-style breakfast (meat, potatoes, and scrambled eggs). It’s easier with a proper stove and multiple burners and pans, but it tastes better outdoors at the campground or in the woods. We discovered that Phoebe really liked the little breakfast sausages, and that mommy didn’t have much of an appetite (what she did eat didn’t stay with her for long either).

After breakfast, we returned to the task of opening presents. Phoebe and Mommy helped to distribute everything into individual piles, and we took turns going around the room opening presents. Phoebe and I took turns “helping” Benjamin, who isn’t really ready for present opening just yet. It’s a good thing we’re going to have a couple of additional Christmas celebrations when relatives come out in January for Benjamin’s baptism, because the number of presents we had to open were about all we could stomach collectively. As it were, we had to promise Phoebe we’d have reading time after all of the presents were open just to get through with all of them. I’ll leave you all with a few highlight photos from the festivities.