On Christmas afternoon, we headed up to Delaware to spend some more time with family. We had breakfast for late lunch/early dinner and opened presents. One of the traditions that I’ve learned from Matt’s family is how to open one gift at a time, going around in a circle and taking turns. Growing up, it was always chaos with everyone going at once and paper flying everywhere, and then afterwards inspecting what gifts had actually been given. There is something nice about both methods, and I love the fact that we get to do it both ways now. Another tradition of theirs is eating grapefruit. Though I tried it one year, I just can’t get down with it, but it is still a comforting reminder of Christmas day for me now, regardless of the fact that I don’t eat it.

The day after Christmas, we decided to get out of the house, and went for a walk around the lake at Carousel Park with the doggies. It was windy and chilly, but it felt nice to stroll around and let Bowser and Tiki enjoy some play time.

Woweeezowweee, I can’t believe that the new year is almost here, and I only managed to post twice before now in the month of December. We are still alive! We’ve been crazy busy, but in a good way. Finishing up the semester always feels like it rolls right into the holidays without much time for a breather, and with family visits, home projects, and all the rest in between, this last month has really flown by with lots of happy times. Matt and I each put two more grad classes behind us and are now a 1.5 years (Matt) and 1 year (me) away from our Masters Degrees. Woo hoo! Will life go back to normal after that?

In early Decemeber, David and Kristy flew home from Alaska to visit until Christmas Eve. We got to see them a bunch of times, and Kristy even came up to Delaware for the day with us ladies for the annual Christmas tea. A few nights before Christmas, we had the whole family over for dinner. We exchanged gifts, ate sweet-potato-chicken chili for dinner, and played Bananagrams (best game ever). Oh, and we all ate lots of cookies and drank chocolate falvored wine. Kristy and I came up with the idea that maybe we should line the rims of our wine glasses with Nutella. Kind of like the same idea as a salt rim for a margarita. Though we didn’t actually execute our plan, I still think we were onto something brilliant that night.

cookies, fudge, and bananagrams!
   

our stockings
   

please note the awesome tuxedo shirt that Kristy is wearing while playing Quordy so quickly that her fingers are blurry.

Well this is just awesome. If we had a window AC unit, I would copy this idea in a second.