Christmas

We all managed to be healthy by Christmas.  I am thankful for that.  There was much to be thankful for, unfortunately it's been a challenge to focus on those good things and not the bad.  This by far was a most difficult Christmas for myself.  Everyone else had a wonderful time. 

Christmas Eve is what my family (growing up) made a deal about.  That was when everyone got together and we had a big dinner with all the usual Christmas foods.  Christmas day was a time for just our family to hang out.  Over the years I've tried to keep a bit of Christmas Eve going for my own family.  It has been many years since we've gone North to be with family.  This year things were looking like a flop in trying to so *something*, anything, on Christmas Eve.  We managed to make some cut out cookies to decorate and munch on.  That was a lot of fun.

Christmas day turned out a bit different.  Since we had been sick we were not able to celebrate Christmas with Jeremiah's mom.  So it was just us this Christmas day, a first in many, many years.

One of the gifts the kids received from my Dad and Mom was pre-baked gingerbread cookies that needed decorating.  So we broke that open last night and had some fun with decorating cookies once again.  Last night we also had our Christmas dinner, a day late.  On Christmas itself we had eggs, and then around 10 PM we had apple pie. Like I said, nothing quite went like I had imagined it would :-)

I leave you with some pictures of our cookie times.

Cut outs decorated by Flannery.  I only doubled the recipe as I didn't want 50 gazillion cookies left over hanging out...needing to be eaten :-)

The boys had a blast decorating cookies, and eating them.  Clothing is optional it seems :-)

Jonah showing off his cookies.

It also looks like chairs were optional as well.  Nothing quite like getting up on the work surface to be closer to your cookies!  I spy Moira sampling the frosting.

This year the boys actually helped me make the cookie batter and cut them out.  Let's say that computers will be banned from future holidays.  The frosting though, was strong enough to pull the girls away from the computer.  Flannery, as always, really enjoyed decorating her cookies.

This ended up sideways.  Here is Isabella decking the tree.

Despite his look, Jed was very much excited about seeing what was in the box (from my Dad and Mom).

Aubrey really loved his new clothing.  No, really, he did.  He was all excited about trying some out.  He chose to wear the shirt with the dog on it.  Really cute!

This was the night we decorated the gingerbread cookies.  Jed asked for some sunglasses on his (they had some samples on the box, one which had sunglasses on it).  He was very patient about waiting his turn for me to cut out the fondant. 

 I just realized how involved Jonah gets with crafts.  He really takes his time with them! 

 Moira started eating hers before I could get a picture of it.  She couldn't stop laughing about it.

 Flannery, in her element again.  It wouldn't surprise me if she grew up to be a chef.

 Still decorating.  Aubrey just kept tasting everything.  We would help him put some decorations on and he promptly ate them off :-)  So his cookie ended with two white marks, left over from the frosting.  That was it.  Ha, ha!

 Flannery's creation.

 Isabealla and Saoirse working on their cookies.  The kit only came with one frosting bag, so I made another out of a ziplock baggy.  I think I should have made a few more!  That was one item we didn't have enough of to go around in quick enough fashion (as per children's perception that is!).

 This was the cookie that I decorated.  For some reason Jonah wanted to eat my cookie, and gave me  his cookie to eat.

 Aubrey thought this fondant stuff was pretty cool.  He enjoyed eating the scraps that were left behind after we cut something out.

 Saoirse with her finished cookie.  She did a great job!

 Isabella's finished cookie.  Hers by far was the most intricately designed.

 Flannery's cookie was in the process of being eaten, when she had a change of design...

Flannery's cookie, on the right, transformed into Santa.  They were just messing around with the left over frosting.  You know you can't have left over frosting, that would be a sin :-) So she put it to good use.