Christmas Past

You knew I would eventually get back to OUR Christmas at home, right?! I've now completed 4 of the 5 Christmas albums from here there and everywhere. THIS is from home, way back on Sunday the 23rd. So, yes, I've been going backwards in time.

I think I told you that Donica's job is always the hors d'oeuvres. She's the Queen of them. So everyone came early, around noon, to start enjoying the day.

After hors d'oeuvres was the Christmas stockings. Actually, Donica does those and she's Queen of them as well. In fact , the kids say they enjoy them as much as the "real" presents. And besides, this is the one time when everyone can "open" their stockings at the same time. No one has to wait.
And then Nicholas gets to open all his gifts because he always has the most. And we all watch him. Kids!

BUT when the rest of us start opening our gifts, we have a tradition: one gift at a time, one person at a time, going around the room till they're all opened. I can't stand free-for-all gift opening! After all the time and energy and thought put into the gifts, each for the other, there needs to be some careful respect. That's my motto!

Besides, some gifts are so touching, everyone has to look and see...

...and laugh, together!

There's even time to discover and explore and pay attention.

Then we all went outside. This year, the weather was NICELY permitting!

Mark and Dennis threw the football...

...while Donica and Amy held down the fort, Nicholas tried out his new Nintendo DS game, and G'ma took the pictures.

Speaking of G'ma, lucky her, she gets to show you HER special gift of the day: another photo book from Amy (remember last year's on our Castles of Scotland?!). This one is a compilation of photos I took of her and Mark from when she was age 0-13. Can you imagine THAT! OMG! How can she top that, two years in a row!

And speaking of Amy, here she is after all that outside fresh air, fixing the spinach salad for the Christmas dinner. That's always her dinner contribution. It's to die for!

My part was the traditional pot of Chicken Paprikash that we all grew up on from their dad's mom years ago. Though a Hungarian poor-man's dish, it suddenly became what we all decided was our favorite dish after the divorce. Once a year at Christmas!

It's one of the few times we actually eat in the dining room! If you squint, you can see that Nicholas really IS there, on the other side of Donica.

Later, after the dishes are done and there's room in our stomachs, Mark's from-scratch pumpkin pie comes out! He's the King of our desserts in the same way Donica is the Queen of our hors d'oeuvres. We ALWAYS save room for his pumpkin pie. It's a no-brainer.

By the last bite, we've just finished 8 hours together! A beautiful memory of family time, now with Dennis included! He fits right in, of course. He doesn't need to be married to Amy YET to be part of the family. But that'll come quickly. June 1 is not that far away, as we all know.

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In the here and now, Donica and I are both safe-n-sound in Amsterdam. On Wednesday evening, Tracy/Lurch from the UK, part of my Shutterchance photoblog (SC), arrives by plane for a couple days here at the apartment. On Friday, Astrid and Scarlet, the Dutch Girls, will join us for fun and games. A mini-SC meet-up!

Life is always exciting, isn't it! How could I ask for more?!