I would have blogged earlier, but I was cutting circles. A pile of them. I just can't help but have several crafty projects going on at once, and the circles are necessary to complete a project tomorrow night.
Just me, my scissors, some tea, and a magazine.
Until I realize those scissors are as dull as listening to a basketball game on the radio and I go in search of my new badass scissors. And then I plow on with the pile.
And finally, FINALLY, we show that uncut pile of felt who's boss. Tomorrow we do something with this pretty pile of circles.
But for now, let's wrap up the Christmas recap. There's a lot to share. Like how I made GG frost the cake on Christmas Eve day. I baked the cake, I made the frosting, but damn if I don't hate actually decorating the cake. And frankly, don't ever visit my house during a holiday without expecting to be put to work.
Grady volunteered to supervise. As you can see, GG was excited.
When the frosting was on, Cole was invited to come and join to do sprinkles.
Voila! My work is done for me.
Now while GG was distracted, there was no one to supervise Grampie and next thing we know he's showing us his HoHoHo underwear. I can only be grateful that he wasn't yet wearing it.
We went for a walk to get out of the house a bit.
And then we had our traditional appetizer dinner, and we let the two boys pop a Christmas cracker each. The best part of the cracker is the hat.
Look how relaxed Grampie looks in the glow of the table lights. While wearing his HoHoHo underwear, if you're wondering.
Next stop was the kitchen to make cookies because we needed some fresh ones to leave for Santa. I hear he's particular and likes them chewy.
Cookies were placed with great care and excitement.
And off to bed everyone went. Neither K or I slept well that night because we were so nervous-would Santa come? Would a boy wake up and catch Santa? These are nerve-racking questions.
And of course, he did come! With lots of goodies for the boys and even some things for the adults in their stockings. I could fill weeks of blog entries with pics of the boys opening presents, but let's not go there. I do love this picture below of the boys playing with an alphabet interactive thing that they call their "PBS's". I think they are trying to say PDA's, and I don't even know where they learnt that, but what ends up coming out is PBS as in
PBS Kids.
Fast forward a while, and the rest of this side of the family show up for an overnight visit. And Oupa! He came, too, with that spoiled dog. Nana had to tend to the sick at work, otherwise I would have invited her and put her to work too.
The men went right to work drinking fancy beer.
And Grady monitored Cousin L, the wee bandito. This big kid loves a baby.
And the Three Banditos chilled a little bit, too, while they watched an old favorite.
And then we plopped their Bandito asses in bed for a nap so the adults could have a good holiday meal.
Christmas crackers were popped and everyone
was told to wear their hats seemed really excited to wear their hats for the whole meal.
The tightness of the hats on some of our heads led to an impromptu measuring of heads, and I am happy to report that while I am related by blood to the person with the biggest head at the table, it's not mine.
And cheers to all of us!
Now I have to tell you something about dinner, or any meal, or frankly any conversation with this family. Do not think you can have a gathering of sort without someone deciding that someone else said something incorrect. And then Someone #1 must spend a large portion of the rest of the meal explaining why or how that person is wrong. It's not unheard of for Someone #1 to think back years and years for evidence to support how Someone #2 is wrong. I'm sure some of you have families like this, but to say that the family I grew up in is non-confrontational is a gross understatement, so its taken some time to acclimate to this new family dynamic.
My family's contradictions go something like this:
Someone 1: Blah, Blah, Blah....
Someone 2: Are you sure? 'Cause I thought anti-Blah, Blah, Blah...
Someone 1: Oh really? Hmm. Maybe, I could be wrong.
Someone 2: Well, I'm not sure, maybe I'm remembering it wrong, too.
<something shiny goes by>
Someone 1: OH! Have you heard of this other Blah, Blah, Blah?
And the conversation moves on. But no, not with this group of folks whom I'll mostly affectionately call know-it-alls. Nope. Here if you make a mistake of saying something someone wants to contradict, you will pay for it, and frankly so will the rest of us at the table. I have learned to mostly give opinions and vague statements, but some other people just never learn. <sigh>. Wine does help.
Thanks to technology, the process of proving each other wrong is much faster. And this brings me to my actual point of this little ramble. A good portion of the meal was spent checking facts using smartphones. Smartphones I'd like to point out we don't have, thanks, K, but that others do.
Here is K bossing other K to check to see if Grampie's claim of some beer being strong forever ago is in fact true. The only thing I think we determined for sure is that there wasn't enough champagne at the table to keep me interested in the outcome of this conversation.
Even GG got into the action. Grampie sat back and watched them look for evidence proving he's wrong.
Here I think Angela is looking at me and sending an unsaid message of
sos.
But there was no s.o.s. for a while, the googling was intense.
Finally I made a break for it and went to get A's cake. She had a birthday a few days before, so candles she had to blow out!
And now I leave you with the two best pictures K has taken in a long time. Think of it as the blog equivalent of a grand finale in a firework show.
Is the color in the next two pictures the best? No. Is the composition the best? No. Did we use our best lens? No.
But are these the funniest pictures I've seen in a while? Yes.
Shortly after the meal, we found these two like this...bonus points to both for keeping the crown on during nap.
It's hard work being an old man at the holidays, ya know?
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