So this year, I hosted Christmas with my immediate family, which included my Dad, stepmom, both sisters and my niece and nephew. I made turkey and all the fixin's (since I didn't end up making one for Thanksgiving) and it was delish!!! (kinda surprised myself :) And after dinner, we opened presents. With 3 kids aged 9, 10 and 11, this is a pretty quick task. They don't spend too much time looking at the gifts at first...and it's utter destruction in the living room :) Izzy was very focused on the task at hand... Not quite sure what happened to my nephew's pants, but had to capture it! Love the hat! A little time with Grandma And a little time with Grandpa My nephew LOVES Izzy....since he's the only boy, I think he appreciates it when he gets to do things with her..cute! All of the kids ended up spending the night at our house that night, which was no small feat for us. We (Joacim and I) were a little worried because we'd never had more than 2 of them at a time (sounds silly, I know, but I've heard from very reliable sources that they can gang up on you!). The great side-benefit of this is having 3 great little baby-sitters :) JT spent some time with Joacim playing the playstation, and Taylor and Brianne played with Izzy:
We had a great time....made hot chocolate and popcorn and watched Polar Express. It was a GREAT day!!!
This was a great Christmas. Joacim and I were both worried because the last time we spent Christmas here alone (which was in 2006) it wasn't very much fun with just the two of us. But with Izzy it's SOOO much more fun! She's not quite old enough to get caught up in the Christmas spirit, and she's absolutely terrified of Santa, but it was a great holiday nonetheless. I even got a little weepy as she and I were laying in the spare bedroom watching White Christmas. This is a tradition for me (usually watched on Christmas Eve, but I was terribly sick with some virus so it didn't happen) and it's one that I hope Izzy and I can share in the future. I hope to pass on a lot of things, and I'm sure it'll be confusing for her due to the differences in the Swedish and American traditions, but we'll figure it all out!
Another tradition that we have is to be able to open one gift on Christmas Eve. Izzy was much more interested in the box....at first... but she ended up loving her school bus We got a REALLY late start on Christmas Day. We had breakfast first, and then walked Murphy, and it wasn't before noon that we opened our first present I think. I love lazy days, and I'll treasure this Christmas, because we might not be so lucky in the upcoming ones! :) It's a little sad that I didn't get more photos of Izzy opening gifts, but I was so focused on the video camera that I completely forgot! Que terrible!!!!
This is the "big" gift for Izzy....she LOVES this little kitchen!!! We also got her a vacuum. Now, I gotta say that I feel a little bad buying her things like this because I might be reinforcing gender roles (yeah, call it the feminist in me), but she does love these things! And we got her the vacuum because she's been trying to vacuum with us every time we bring it out. Now she can get her own!
Here she is skyping with her farmor and farfar in Sweden
I'm so thankful that we got to spend this time together as a family. I hope everyone else had a very Merry Christmas!!
