Christmas Day Recap

This is the night before...Rudolph dropped off new Christmas Pj's for the girls.

The scene at James' and Tiffany's. It was so nice of them to let us crash here for a week, and also so nice of them to give Santa directions to their house.

Kate was thrilled with her new Leapster. She originally wanted to ask for other things from Santa, but I thought a leapster would be a good gift, so I bought it anyway and then used the power of suggestion/Jedi mind tricks to get Kate to think she'd ALWAYS wanted a leapster.

Burke, Mark, Tiffany, James (festive in his Christmas sweater vest!) and Kate. If you would like to marry either of the two lovely gentlemen on the left, please let me know immediately.

Kiki stripped down to make friends at a later get-together. She really has a way with people. This trip alone she's added several important "friend-making" words to her limited vocabulary: DON'T!!! and MINE!!!

I'm always a little sad Christmas night- the day seems to go so fast. I conned my sister-in-law Tiffany into hosting Christmas dinner at her house last night, hoping to prolong Christmas as long as possible. She was game, and I'm indebted to her to responding in the affirmative when I asked, "Hey, Tiff, can we stay with you a week, and can we bring our kids, and can we host dinner for 25 on Christmas?" What a trooper. Bruce served a mission to England, so I though a pseudo-English dinner would be fun. I wanted it to still be GOOD, and edible, which is why "pseudo-English" was as far as I was willing to go. We ate roast beef and gravy, new potatoes, and the star of the feast was the Yorkshire puddings. Bruce has often reminisced about the Yorkshire puddings on his mission, and when I did a little research I found that they are simple ingredients and pretty easy to make. We had pound cake with Bird's custard for dessert, and I think the meal was a success. Perhaps Bruce will comment with his feelings on the topic...

I also must say that even though she was far away, my mom saved Christmas dinner. Christmas morning I put the roasts in the crock pot, and when we returned at 3:oo, Tiffany and I were horrified to find that they were still raw in the middle! We were eating in two hours and I did the only thing I knew to do in such a terrible situation: Call my mom. She gave us specific instructions which we followed to the letter, and at 4:45 we had delicious, tender roast beef. Thanks, Merrilee, you saved our bacon.

All in all, it was a great Christmas spent with family and friends.