Christmas Eve

Whew! That went by fast! Season's greetings, blog readers, from The House of Recovery. Brian, James and I have all managed to get sick, recover and then spread it to each other all over again, but we did not let it stop us from enjoying a visit from Brian's family, 2 Christmas Eve dinners, dinner for 9 (nine!) at our home, a neighborhood cookie exchange, and 10 hours of gift unwrapping on Christmas day.

Here is James' new bear, from Oma, that sings "Santa Baby" while swiveling its hips. James loves it and hugs it while it's writhing around in his arms.

This is Christmas Eve Dinner #1. The Coynes have a long-standing tradition (about 25 years) of having Christmas Eve dinner with friends of the family, the Lyons.... in West Palm Beach (avg temp on Christmas Eve - 75). Somehow we convinced them to keep up this tradition by driving 12 hours north and celebrating it with us in Old Town (avg temp on Christmas Eve - 10) on December 21st.

It was worth the chill to enjoy another great Christmas Eve dinner, this time in our own private wine room at a great Old Town restaurant, Landini Brothers. Even better was the fact that our babysitter was available so Brian and I actually enjoyed dinner.

 
Oma brought a gingerbread-man making kit and James made one cookie with every frosting flavor and decoration provided and then stated, "this one is for Santa!"

Here is a pic from our ACTUAL Christmas Eve dinner at La Tasca - spanish style tapas. Brian and I had been there in the past and were treated to a performance by Flamenco dancers. We assured everyone that this would be the case on Christmas Eve, but arrived only to be assured by the waitstaff that we were crazy if we thought Flamenco dancers wanted to perform on Christmas Eve. Of course, we had built this whole thing up for James who asked about the "dancing ladies" for three hours straight. 

He only stopped asking about them long enough to (I swear) flag down a waiter and ask for his ice cream. 

He honestly (!) waved him down and said: "Excuse me. Can I have my ice cream?"

Waiter: "Sure! Do you want strawberry, chocolate or vanilla?"

James: "ummmm, banilla please."

Then back home to write a letter to Santa (10 minutes), leave out the cookies and milk (5 minutes), and to unwind from that GIANT bowl of ice cream (about 2 hours).

Stay tuned.... it's not even Christmas yet.