Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve has always been the day we celebrate with my side of the family, and 2008 was no exception. I worked late into the evening and met Lisa and the kids at my parents apartment around 7pm, ecstatic that a predicted snowstorm had came and went without any muscle behind it.

[The kids had been unable to find the camera prior to leaving for my Mom's, so you'll have to excuse the blurry camera phone shots. The lighting was quite dim]



Dinner was kiebalsa and ham, peas and carrots, macaroni and potato salad, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs and a chocolate cake, the latter three all made by Lisa.



When it was time to open gifts the family reverted to a free-for-all style, but I quickly barked my displeasure and some order was restored. I at least got to see half the presents opened.



















My Mom was polite but less than thrilled when we presented her with a set of 5 Garth Brooks concert DVD's - until we explained they were DVD's and not CD's, at which point she seemed very happy.





YaYa treated us all to a song on the piano (and did a better job than any of us expected!)






My sister seemed to genuinely love an outfit Lisa bought her



Smiley liked his Spiderman bedspread and his dinosaur (more on that one later)



Here I am at the tail end of a four or five minute giggle fit, following a very stupid joke I told.



After it all we passed out oplatki [sic], blessed wafers that are distributed throughout the room by each person in birth order. I am now third in line behind my parents, while Lisa still coos about coming after my sisters (and thus being younger then them)





Like I said before, I nice, relaxing time with my family, and a fine kickoff to the busy Christmas holiday

Our Christmas Photo Shoot

Hot dog. I just beat the 'expert' level of Minesweeper :)


* * * * *

Shortly after I was laid off I lamented to Lisa that it took place when it did. Had it happened in summer, I said, I'd have had the unique opportunity to interact with the kids all day.

Yeah. And then came the ENTIRE WEEK they were (inexplicably) off of school for Thanksgiving, and that statement came to be known for the utter cr** that it was :)

But, we did use that week to accomplish some things. With our finances curtailed we could not go 'all out' as we usually do on Christmas cards, much less get a professional portrait. Instead we dressed 'em up and headed down to Southridge Mall to take a picture with Santa.









We got there early - earlier than Santa actually.



Here's two shots I tried taking with our camera. Neither was adequate, and I was running out of room on the memory card or out of battery power (I forget which) and couldn't take another.





It didn't matter, really. The mall still made us buy a photo (although I talked them down to half-price) and it was quite good enough. We later scanned and made copies to distribute in our cards.



If you DIDN'T get one this year, please don't be angry or remove us from '09's list. With our finances we only managed to get 40 or so cards in the mail (as opposed to 70-80 normally) and even those were staggered over a few weeks time.

After the shot we went and let the kids play in the jungle gym area of the mall. While we were there we ran into Lisa's cousin Jodie and her son Jackson, and chatted awhile while the kids played.













In case you can't pick up on it, Smiley LOVED wearing a tie!

Smiley's Christmas Concert

Well, holiday concert actually as it was at his public school, although you know what? I think they did call it a Christmas concert and just stuck to secular songs.
Because of the lack of a proper auditorium at his school, the concert was held at a nearby middle school.



Here's Smiley with his teacher Ms. Heidi before the show. He's got a little crush on her.



Anyhow, we took everyone but Lump to the show.



His class performed a Hawaiian Christmas song (not Mele Keleekemaka [sic])complete with pointy elf hats and a lei. I'd know the title of the song but Smiley appears to have stolen the program from his drawer in our filing cabinet (each kid has their own drawer full of momentos and schoolwork).

[update: I found the program. It was 'The Merry Hula']

He's third from the left in this shot.









It was a ball. Afterwards I snuck down to his class to retrieve him and take him home, as we weren't going to stay for the whole program (very rude I know, but every once in awhile you gotta just do what's best for yourself)



But . . . the guilt got to us, and the songs were pretty good, and so we stayed for 3/4ths of the performance (and therefore got a chance to see his other teacher sing a song in a trio)







We left early, as I said, and loittered for a minute or two in the hall.











Even with a bad hair day going on I couldn't stop being proud of the little guy!



P.S. One thing I did want to mention is that his school videotapes every concert and event and offers the results to families at a very reasonable cost - two DVD's for $10 in the case of this concert. What a great program, one that spares me from having to watch every special day through the viewfinder of a camera. Good job public school!