Christmas 2009

Christmas Eve finally arrived and as usual at about 7pm it came with a phone call from Santa. YES, we do have incredible connections, don't we !!! Santa calls us every Christmas Eve to talk to the girls and remind them they have to be in bed and ASLEEP before his Christmas magic will work and the presents arrive and the stockings get filled. This year he told Carolina that in addition to the carrots we traditionally leave out for the reindeer, they also are very fond of apples. So Carolina had Chris find apples and cut them into 9 pieces - one for each reindeer. The girls were in bed so quickly, I was wishing for a phone call from Santa every night, or at least his cell number so I could text an urgent appeal for a call from him for those nights when they are little night owls and nothing seems to get them to settle down.

Christmas morning started around 6am with Rosalind sneaking downstairs to make absolutely sure Santa had indeed arrived. Satisfied that he had in fact left something ( on the dining room table this year so that the kittens did not get to open the stockings first ), she was content to come upstairs for snuggles and wait for her little sister to wake up.

Carolina woke up around 7 am and off we all went downstairs to find BIG presents under the tree, the kittens stockings full of kitty treats and our stockings full to overflowing. !!! We must have all been awfully good this year because clearly we had made it to the 'nice, not naughty list' . Around 11am Erik, Lisa and Jillian came over for Christmas brunch and we settled into round two of present opening !!!

Probably our best family gift was a WII. Chris got it set up in the afternoon and for the rest of the day we were all bowling, golfing and watching Rosalind play baseball and tennis. Think the WII will really be a fun thing to have .. Carolina wasn't really into it but I suspect she will be soon !! Amongst all the presents I got was the Magic Bullet set, so I had fun organizing the many pieces and reading the manual and recipes !! Started by making chicken salad and ham salad for sandwiches. Chris made smoothies with blueberries and variations of pineapple, yogourt , bananas and vanilla ice cream !!! Probably the best present for Chris was the blanket that snaps together to keep you warm and snug - can't remember the name- but we've named it the Obi Wan blanket because Chris looks like Ben Kenobi when he is wearing it. That was from Erik and Lisa and they scored as giving the top present this year - they also won last year when they gave Chris a vibrating heat pad for Chris's car !!

The cats did well too. In their stockings there was a little can of specialty dinner, Christmas bowls for each one and toys.... little kitten kongs, mice that actually squeak like real mice ( extremely disconcerting when one lives in an old house that in fact has seen real mice from time to time ) and are all filled with catnip, The cats have been in kitty heaven ever since Rosalind and Carolina 'helped' them open their stockings !!!! All in all , a great Christmas was had by all !!!!!!!!