Our Christmas

What follows weeks of decorating, shopping, baking, wrapping, parties, projects, concerts, cleaning, finals, and stress? Peace. What a wonderful, relaxing Christmas we enjoyed this year--made even more memorable by a visit from Aunt Page. Here is our holiday summed up in 5 sentences.

1. We ate--a lot.


In addition to all the cookies, candy, turkey, and eggnog (I think Brandon might have put away nearly 1/2 a gallon of the creamy concoction by himself), Mark did his best to give his sister Page a thorough tour of all his favorite local restaurants. By the time we put Page back on the plane, we were all feeling heavier.

2. We lounged.
We spent quite a few days in our PJs just hanging out, and even on those days that we did have to get dressed, say, to go out to lunch or catch a movie, the return home was quickly followed by change back into something "a little more comfortable".

3. We played.

Santa brought Brandon and Bryce each a new Nintendo 3DS and several new games. Whether it was on Nintendo, around the kitchen table, or rolling on the floor laughing at some of Aunt Page's improv games, we had a blast playing together as family.

4. We broke in the new upstairs furniture.

Page's impending arrival gave Mark the excuse he's been waiting for to talk me into redecorating our upstairs family room*. In the spirit of marital compromise, we turned the upstairs in to a man-cave complete with an enormous leather reclining couch and big screen TV. (In case you are wondering what I got out of the deal, I now have carte blanche to decorate the downstairs, at a future date, as I see fit. Floral couches here I come! hee-hee) And while we had already spent a few weeks enjoying the new media room, we really tested its limits with Aunt Page. Halfway through her visit, we introduced Page to "Drop Dead Diva". In the next four and a half days, we watched almost 2 complete seasons. That's a lot of couch time!
*On a side note, we found out that our old upstairs furniture is too shabby to donate to charity. Apparently, not even the destitute want a couch held together by duct tape. Go figure.

5. We squeezed 12 months of love and attention into Aunt Page.

The kids did their level best to make their Aunt feel adorded by arguing over who got to sit by her and wanting her to be with them almost every hour of the day. We sure appreciated her bringing her sense of fun to our holidays this year. We will miss you Aunt Page.