Christmas 2011

This year, we celebrated Christmas with Dave's family in Salt Lake City.  This Christmas Eve's theme was Greek Christmas.  We had a craft project, cooked and tried some traditional Greek dishes, and "danced" (attempted to dance) a couple of traditional Greek dances.  After a delicious dinner that included lemon chicken soup, couscous, roasted veggies, stuffed cabbage, pork roast, and homemade bread, the kids (both young and old) opened their presents from Grammie (Judy) and Granddaddy (Allan), and then we all opened the presents that we got for each other as part of the gift-exchange.  The grand-kids opened their presents from youngest to the oldest and surprisingly, they all waited patiently for their turn.  We all got what we wanted and it was a great time seeing every one's gifts and excitement.  We finished the evening with delicious desserts and sparkling cider.

 Someone has been very good this year :)

 Cousins:  Bridger, Gabe, Braxton, Nikki, Emma, and Eris

 Time to open presents

 Eris in her new princess outfit

Thank you hugs :)

After we got home, it was time for Gabe to go to bed so we could get the last of the gifts out and under the tree and to await the arrival of Santa.  Santa brought lots of good presents for Gabe and left them next to the fire place.  But, when Gabe got up the next morning he completely ignored the gifts and checked his stockings.  Then he came to me and said that Santa only gave him candy.  Even after we told him the gifts by the fire place were from Santa, he insisted they were from Dave and that only stuff in the stockings was from Santa.  Oh well, at least we got credit for all the gifts!  And here is a sample of a few:

We spend the rest of Christmas relaxing (I even took two naps because I had a bad head cold). 

On Monday, Judy and I took Gabe to see the Muppets.  He liked it but could not sit still the whole movie.  Good think we had open space in front of us so he could move and roll on the floor without getting in the way.  I think he does better with animated movies and there are a couple coming out this spring that look really fun.