We had our appointment with Santa at Phipps Plaza at 2 p.m. on Christmas Eve day. Katrina and Alexander cleaned up nicely and while they were working for coal in the car drive, they were sweet as sugar when they got their turn with Santa. Katrina is now 12 and this is her 11th year on tape with Santa. Alexander is 10 and 5/6 and this is his 11th Santa visit as well.
Robert baked another batch of his famous cookies for Santa and watched Miracle on 34th Street with the kids while I wrapped gifts and baked for Christmas morning. The kids were warned that they could wake us up at 9 a.m. and then we would open presents.
No alarm clock was needed this morning -- at precisely 9 a.m., the pitter patter of their feet was heard down the hallway as the kids came into our bedroom singing "We wish you a Merry Christmas." Their dad tortures them by taking time to shave and brush his teeth before going downstairs to set up the video camera to capture their descent down the stairs to get to their stockings.
This is the first Christmas day where we stayed at home all day. This was quite disturbing for our daughter, who felt we broke the important family tradition of having Christmas dinner at Aunt Linda and Uncle Ted's home. In recent years, we would join our cousins Catherine and Christina at their parents' home. Now that Catherine's two kids are getting old enough to fully grasp Christmas morning, they decided to stay at home (in Florida) this year. Of course, that means that the grandparents would drive to Florida to see their grandkids. So we are left to fend for ourselves for Christmas dinner.
To prepare for Christmas breakfast, I made mom's famous Jewish Coffee Cake and Grandma Vesta's Blueberry Buckle. It's always fun to start the day with dessert first, and these go great with my morning coffee. Gram has been on my mind a lot the last couple of months -- I'm sure her message will reveal itself when I just sit still for a bit.
Robert and the kids decided to stay in their pajamas ALL day. Katrina and Alex are assembling Lego Ferrari cars and Hogwarts trains while listening to the sixth Harry Potter book on CD.
I got a great nap in the middle of the day -- I can't remember when I took a nap without being ill! I got a great book called, The Moon Watcher's Companion. It got me started to think again about the writing career that I've yet to seriously launch. What could I write about? So much has already been said. My brother Gus came up with a couple suggestions:
* Motivations for People Who Relax Too Much
* Google Zeros -- help for people whose names get no hits on Google
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