Recollections of Christmas!

When we returned from our wonderful visit in Virginia Beach with the Blackmans, we hosted an impromtu gathering of my mom's family. My Aunt Betty (my mom's sister) and Uncle Steve were visiting my folks, and Cousin Annie from D.C. came up, too. We enjoyed a smorgasbord of Christmas leftovers and played a rousing round of "The Name Game" where Uncle Steve proved that teaching at an elite private boarding school can give you an edge on obscure Chinese history. Fortunately for our team, Annie is well traveled, well read, and her memory retrieval system works much better than does those belonging to mothers of small children. Perhaps when you get your M.D. in pathology, you study a lot of Chinese dead people.
So here is Evelyn with some favorite things from Christmas--the doll house and fixin's from Anna, Aidan, Uncle Johnny ("No-no") & Aunt Courtney ("Coo-coo"--aren't they great to let stick the names their 20-month old niece gave them?) and even more doll house accessories from Grandma & Grandpa Blackman. Loads of fun, especially for Mommy, who has found (to Daddy's delight) that rearranging the doll house furniture satisfies some of the rearranging urges that she has, and the house we all actually live in stays the way it is for longer periods of time!

Check out our 2007 Christmas tree! Yes, those are the Disney princesses adorning it--Grandma Blackman happened to wrap Evelyn's birthday presents in princess wrapping paper, and Alan and I meticulously saved it, smoothed it out, and cut all the princesses out of it. I mounted them all on construction paper and voila!

Even though I had some feelings of disappointment when we agreed that the "big, real trees" were too much hassle, I must say that it was really, really nice to have get all the Christmas decorations out and the tree decorated in about two hours flat this year. We have been simplifying our lives these past few years (well, let's qualify that--since we've complicated our lives recently by having kids, we simplified other areas to make up for it) and Christmas with fewer frills was sweet. We were able to really focus on the best parts of the holidays--spending time with our families, which was a delight!