Christmas, part 1

(If you're looking for Way Back Wednesday, please scroll down below this post!)

Our Christmas was so HUGE this year that it can't be contained on one post! So look for Part II later today or tomorrow (because I know you just CAN'T get enough cute kid pictures!)
Our extravaganza began on Thursday night when Rob read "The Polar Express" to all the children. Cash, as you can tell, is particularly interested:

Then on Friday I had lunch at the Coventry Tea Room with my sisters. We've been doing this for the past couple of years as Beanie (on the left) heads north to my brother's house to spend Christmas. We were able to have a nice, leisurely lunch despite the fact that I overbooked my very popular (ha, ha) self for the afternoon.

My afternoon was spent at Hannah and Lizzie's class Christmas (or were they holiday?) parties. I was the "official" mom helper at Lizzie's party, but managed to wander across the hall and snap this picture at Hannah's party. This is Hannah and her friends Madeline, Ava and India. India told me she thought I was Hannah's Grandma. Good times.

At Lizzie's party no one said I looked old and decrepit, so it was fun. Here's Lizzie and her friend Claire (Claire has an identical twin sister, Emma) during the snowman game. Each team of two wrapped each other in toilet paper and added buttons. The game was that the fastest wrapper won, but one of the other Moms got giant rolls of toilet paper so NO ONE finished wrapping, so after 10 minutes of trying to wrap we made it just a fun game, so they could switch. We also did Mad Libs (that was my part), and had a gift exchange. There were lots of cookies (I contributed snickerdoodles) and a craft that we didn't get to. Oh, and there was also a guessing jar where the kids had to guess the number of kisses in a jar. There were 127 and Lizzie guessed 325. So she didn't win.

This is Lizzie's teacher Mrs. Fletcher. The mom in charge of the gift card couldn't get one (the bank was out!) so she came up with idea to give the teacher a money tree. It was brilliant and much better than a gift card. She bought this small tree, decorated it and then folded the money in small denominations and tied them like gifts to the tree. It was a huge hit with the teacher. 

 When I got home from the parties I was very happy to find that the candied fruits that I needed to make plum pudding had arrived. It was IMPOSSIBLE to find candied orange and lemon peel and citron at local stores. My friends and I looked in every single local food chain before I turned to the Internet to solve the problem. Luckily there was some available in Secaucus, NJ, so I had it flown in overnight so I could spend Saturday making this. This is the recipe my mom used to make plum pudding with just a couple of alterations. It's hard to get suet (most of the stuff they put out is to feed birds) so I substitute shortening and I don't have a grinder so I use my chopper for the raisins and dried fruits. Other than that, though I make it pretty much the same way Mom, Ging-Ging and Ma did. It was yummy!!

Once the plum pudding was steamed we went over to Terry's house for our annual Christmas Eve get-together. I think we've been doing this for 15 years or so. We started when her kids were little and all excited about Christmas and now my kids are little (well, not so much anymore) and all excited about Christmas. The big excitement this year though was that we got to meet Aunt Terry's new dog, Seven. Seven is their 8-week-old English Shepherd and she's VERY cute. Not as cute as the kid holding her in this picture, but still very, very cute.

Here she is telling Carver and Max that she's the boss. (I love this picture -- Seven is feisty!!)

Here's some of the rest of the bunch. Terry and Shelby are wearing football jerseys because there was some football game on the television while we were enjoying the homemade pizza and the new puppy.

When we got home it was time for our Christmas jammies and to leave cookies and milk out for Santa. This year I surprised them by buying MYSELF a pair of feetie pajamas too, of which you can see a sample in this picture. Let us all give me a pat on the back for 1) being able to put my foot up on the counter and 2) balance well enough to take a picture of it! That is the most you'll ever see of me in my feetie pajamas though -- one of the perqs of being the photographer. The girls had no trouble getting to bed that night (it was late!) and then I got to work finishing up all the details for the next morning and then watched Midnight Mass from the Vatican on television. Rob get to go to actual Midnight Mass at a local church and we hope in a couple of years the girls will be old enough to take to that, too. Although I'll have to figure out the timing since I was busy, busy, busy (cooking, wrapping, looking for presents I couldn't find....etc.) right up until Mass started on television! I swear I don't know how Santa does it!

 Stay tuned for pictures of our Christmas Day(s) in the next post!