12.25.16 - Christmas Joy Inventory

I have not had time to blog about the many pleasant things happening this Christmas trip, but at least at the end of the day today I made a list so I would remember.

--I slept in until I was ready to get up.
--Don & Merlene made an amazing egg bacon casserole and blueberry muffins for breakfast.
--I laughed to myself a lot while taking screen shots from last night's Secret Santa.

--Mom got Clara some very cool new bath toys (so cool her older cousins Zoey and Malcolm were delighted to try them out right away - Clara was mostly into chasing Abigail).
--Julie and I got to give Mom her grandkids' Christmas craft.

--Jack got me a new copy of Good Omens (a favorite book of mine I foolishly lent out and never got back). He even included a funny poem inside the cover and underlined his favorite part of the book on page 341, which made the gift very personal.
--Mom made a fantastic lasagna for lunch. My siblings and I ate it while laughing pretty hard at Mad Libs about Captain Zoom ("They threw pogo sticks at him out of respect...and terror!")

This is actually from playing 5 crowns, also fun.

--While we enjoyed that, Mom managed to get Clara to take a very long afternoon nap.
--Neil had a really good playlist going in the background throughout most of this.
--Back at the in-laws, we had a dinner that involved about 10 different dishes, including deviled eggs and scalloped pineapples.
--Clara even ate a bunch of quinoa (taking after her very health-conscious Mimi, perhaps?)
--Katie and I got to give Don & Merlene their grandkids' Christmas craft.
--Dave got Clara a pretty sweet Blues shirt. And he got me pretty sweet striped knee high socks.

Clara wearing her Blues shirt as a hat.

--Per tradition, Don & Merlene filled out stockings with fruit and candy and other little treats.
--We all exchanged our Christmas letters, which our generally both touching and funny, and this year was no different.
--Also Don & Merlene write letters to Clara (and now Jane), which I think is very sweet. I'll save the letters for when they are both older.
--We all played Quiplash for hours and laughed hysterically. We mostly only stopped to eat dessert (including a chocolate pudding dish with cherries and chocolate no bake cookies).
--Jack got to feel Jane kick.

I hope everyone else had as nice of a day as I did. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night. :)