Christmas

Christmas was awesome.  It took me this long to write about it because I have been so busy basking in the memory of it, that I haven't stopped to write about it. 

At the start of December Chris and I reviewed some of the things that we think are worth making into traditions.  One that we have had since the first year we were married was the chocolate covered apples that we make.  We are actually getting really good at them.  Chris has carefully tested every apple type and found the one most optimal for chocolate dipping - ask him, I don't know what they were - and we let the babies in on the magic this year.  The best was watching them deliver the apples to our neighbors and friends.  Parker shouted 'marry kissmass!' at everyone as they opened the door, and Lyra said something like 'mass mass!!!!!!' dancing with delight as the lucky recipient took the apple from her.  They must have liked it  lot because during our big Christmas dinner, Lyra gave Parker a cupcake (she asks for two of everything now, one for her and one for Parker - and it really is for Parker) and, cupcake in hand, he ran up to some 6'5" guy we had invited, stood at his feet, peering up with his beautiful heavily lashed eyes and said 'marry kissmass!,'  offering the precious cupcake.  It was so sweet. 

Oh, yeah, we had a banquet at our house for Christmas.  I am resolved to do it next year, too!  We had 20 people over, more if you count really small children.  I think it was four families that we had found that we didn't know super well, but wanted too and were just in town alone this year.   Anyway, it made for a house full of laughter and fun.  We did games with the kids and then Chris introduced some really fun games for the adults while I took the kids and made huge towers out of cups.  I don't know what game Chris had them playing, but they were laughing and having fun... and one person was throwing a pillow at people?  They were laughing and having a good time, but they missed out... you should have seen some of those towers go down!  We were sad when it was bedtime for everyone, but as we packed people out the door, the smiles and laughing eyes were the best good night I could imagine.  Wow, that was cheezy, but really, many of these people were good polite people that had always struck me as so sober.  Of course, I suppose that was what people probably thought of me until our new years eve party.

I can't remember why, but I hadn't really had much sleep the last few nights, and we were determined to stay up till midnight.  So us and two other families put our kids to bed upstairs and we started to play games.  We played and played and played and finally, I think we had all been at that table long enough that we really just let go.  There was a lot of good laughing that night, too.  Also, I think that my block alone easily spent a cumulative $1,000 on fireworks.  And the blocks surrounding us probably did more. All these Texans with pent up firework lust.  They may have been forbidden to do them fourth of July, but they made up for lost time.  At 12am,the sky was lit on fire from every angle.  We just stood in the back yard watching them go up. Apparently Parker was watching from his window because I was hearing about the fireworks for days after that.