Thursday, December 25, 2008

Christmas recap

Text only for now - I'll do a photo entry later after pictures have been uploaded. Merry Christmas everyone!

Last night we went to the Christmas Eve service at our UU church. The service was really lovely, if a bit long and hot. Fiona was fussy throughout, but she still managed to put on a good performance while acting as an angel in the Posada reenactment and singing for the Children's Choir. Both girls crashed immediately when we got home, although in Saskia's case it was more out of a desire to make Santa come faster than tiredness.

The girls woke us at 9:00, which was a great Christmas present to us. They rushed downstairs and came back up squealing over the Littlest Pet Shop V.I.P's that Santa left them. We let them go crazy opening Santa's gifts and unloading their stockings, then we made them wait (we are so mean) while we made tea before moving on to the other gifts.

In an effort to make the morning last longer, I have a rule that only one person can open a gift at a time. So we had a sweet couple of hours of leisurely opening gifts. I won't bother listing all their presents, just the top 3... For Saskia #3 was a "Totally Spies" computer game , #2 was her LPS VIP and #1 was most definitely her copy-cat American Girl doll, complete with several beautifully hand-made outfits from Grandma. For Fiona #3 was her Barbie doctor, #2 her LPS VIP and #1 was her first big-girl bike.

After opening presents I made my way to the kitchen to cook breakfast, biscuits and eggs was on the menu. I was surprised to find after we ate that it was already noon! We quickly phoned grandma and grandpa to thank them for their thoughtful gifts and then attempted to register the VIPs. And when I say attempted, I mean it. It took over an hour and the server was so slow they couldn't even play once they finally got registered. I know it's Christmas and all but come on people, shouldn't that be expected? Get some more servers or something, sheesh.

By the time I got off the kid's computers it was 1:30 and I was way behind on making dinner. I started on the chestnut stuffing while Paul prepared the goose. By 3:00 (note, next time I'm buying the chestnuts pre-cooked and peeled) we were allowed a short break. Paul took a nap while I set up a new MSN messenger account so that Saskia and Fiona could chat with their sister in Germany. Luckily Toni was online and we all got to chat for a little while, which was awesome. The girls really miss their sister and talk about her a lot. Hopefully now they will be able to talk to her more often.

After chatting Saskia and I went to rhapsody.com to choose some new music for our MP3 players. She got a gift card allowing her to choose any 2 albums to download: she picked the soundtracks to High School Musical and High School Musical 3. I didn't get a gift card, but I DID get a brand new MP3 player for Christmas from Paul so I treated myself to 3 new albums (yes I'm bad)... Sarah McLachlan, Leonard Cohen and the new K.T. Tunstall. What can I say, I've been in a mellow mood lately.

It's nearly time for dinner now, I can't wait. In addition to the goose we are having rotkohl (red cabbage pickled in red wine and red wine vinegar) and knoedel (kind of like bread dumplings). Yum yum yum! After dinner we will probably watch a movie and maybe I can finally get around to playing with my new MP3 player. I can't believe how the day has flown....

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

sounds like a wonderful day!! i've never had a christmas goose. sounds like it's very british :-)

Lweeks said...

Sounds like a lovely Christmas day.

Jess said...

That sounds like the perfect Christmas. Low key and nice. Merry Christmas to you (a little late).

Alicia said...

I envy your laid back, at-home Christmas. I WILL get to to that one year.

Happy Christmas, Lady!

jae said...

Sounds like a beautiful Christmas :) Hope dinner was as delicious as it sounded! Esp yum on the chestnut stuffing!