... And All I Got Was This One Picture

We are back in the Big Apple. And somehow Christmas came and went without me taking a single picture. This is basically all I got.

Well, ok....and the obligatory shot of Hayley with the football.


And ok, maybe one of Toby too. Giving you a mournful over-the-shoulder look.


It was great to see family though. And if you are desperate for pictures you can check out the ones from last year. 'Cause things were pretty much the same this year.

Christmas was lovely. It rained cats and dogs early Christmas morning, and I love waking up to the rain. Just love it. We had breakfast, which is always amazing. My Aunt Jean always makes a breakfast casserole and this year she tried Paula Dean's recipe. Y-U-M. Eggs and cheese and hashbrowns all in one dish? Sign me up. Jean only used half the cheese that Paula called for and it was still dang good.

When I was younger I always used to marvel at how slowly my Dad opened his gifts. We usually pass out gifts so that everyone has a few to open and then we pause to give people a chance to open them. And now, in my own advancing years, I realized I am taking just as long as he does. I really enjoy watching other people open their gifts. And before you think I'm so selfless and saint-like and giving, let me clarify that I particularly like watching them open gifts that I have given them. If you've ever heard the theory that people have different love languages, I think I've learned that gift giving is one of mine. This year I gave my uncles and my dad some framed photos of the old cars at the farm that we took last year. I thought they turned out great. So much so that I might make some for us to hang in our house. And I was so excited for them to open them. I think they liked them. Which made me happy.

Christmas dinner was lovely and there was much political discussion as always. In general the food down there is just what you'd expect. Excellent. Southern. Full of cheese. It's a good thing we only go there once a year. But we balanced it out with walks out at the farm. So I managed not to gain any weight for the few days we were there. Yay me.

The day after Christmas we hosted a little gathering of family friends, just like we did last year. It was great fun. Somehow, my uncles swindled me into singing a few Christmas tunes IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. Which was more than slightly mortifying. I haven't sung solo in front of people in about 5 years. And boy oh boy, can you tell. But luckily I was in a room of people who love me, so the level of judgement was minimal. And after that, I quickly retreated to the couch with my glass of wine and promptly won over my friends Mac & Katherine's two boys (Ben age 7, Sam age 4) with the Lightsaber application on my iPhone. Their dad had just gotten an iPod touch and they were loving it, so I showed them how they could wave my phone around and make it sound like a Lightsaber. And when we found out you could customize your Lightsaber (choose your color and put your picture in there to create your own character) I think I won them over for good. Shortly after this revelation, Sam looked at me real deeply, like he was really contemplating Important Things and asked, "Where do you live?". He was clearly hoping I'd say "Right around the corner" instead of "New York City", in hopes that there would be many more hours of Lightsaber practice in his future.

This was Ben's Lightsaber picture. He put the hood of his sweatshirt up and got all serious about it. He was "Young Master".



Sam was Luke Skywalker. Naturally. But my the application only let me save one custom picture at a time, so I don't have a shot of him. Which is really too bad.

Our last day there we spent some time at the farm and then visited a bit with Mac & Katherine, who do a weekly podcast called Catholic in a Small Town. They are super fun and really funny, so I bet it's great. We'll be listening in. And then we headed home for Aunt Paula's ribs for dinner. She made them one other year and they cook all day long and are pretty dang amazing. In fact, once they were served, the dinner table got pretty quiet. Because we were all enjoying them so much. In fact, Geoff then dubbed them Paula's Shut You Up Ribs. Cause that's what they do.

So we had a great time. Yay for family and fun and holidays and a little time away from work. Yay indeed.