A Holly Jolly Christmas

Well, the first batch of bread that I mixed and kneaded in my sweet new Kitchenaid stand mixer is currently rising atop the stove covered in a cute pastel green bowl so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for me to sit down and write up a Christmas recap post! I've got photos but they're not great - my brother is the photographer in the family so most of the time I just leave my camera in my purse and let him take the pictures. BUT, I haven't been able to get a copy of his pictures yet, so I just had to make do with what I had.

Since the post I wrote about our own little Christmas was devoid of photos, I'll begin by sharing a few of those photos ....

On Friday night, the table was set all fancy like, with a huge spread of food (far too much for just the two of us!)

On Saturday morning, we opened our stockings and then lazed around for the rest of the day.

The fabulous dude was so excited about his stocking gifts

Saturday evening, we got all dolled up and headed out to dinner

So that's that! Now moving on ... I headed to my hometown on the 20th to spend a few days with my mom, my sister, and Little H. We spent our days making lists (surprised?), getting groceries, preparing food, and enjoying each other's company. The rest of the family joined us on the 23rd (minus BIL who couldn't get there until Christmas Eve).

Most of our days were spent playing games, eating tons of food, and just hanging out. My brother and SIL got my dad the Rockband Country Pack for his birthday so we had a lot of fun with that over the holidays. Everyone had a blast playing .... the young and the old! I just loved watching my Grandpa sing "The Gambler".

On Christmas Eve, we had lunch at my parent's store with all of their employees and had a delicious dinner of our favourite finger foods and appetizers (some recipes will be posted over the next little while).

We had a few heated games of pictionary - Kirkland borns versus NON-Kirkland borns. As you can see by the easel set up - we are serious about our pictionary! .

Then we all went to bed for a night of little sleep. We are seriously all like children on Christmas eve ... we cannot sleep and we just count the hours until we're allowed to get up. This year, Little H fussed a little bit around 4:45 but went back to sleep. Once we finally got up at SIX am, we all admitted that since he had cried at 4:45 we were all just waiting waiting waiting for someone to make the move and get up so we could all run like 5 year olds to the living room and start shaking our presents.

The morning was spent opening our stockings and our gifts. We like to savour this time - it took us almost 4 hours to open our gifts. We go one by one and show everyone everything we get.

This was the year of the kitchen for me! Although I got a few items of clothing and some books and DVDs, the bulk of my gifts were geared toward my love of cooking. Of course, the KitchenAid Stand mixer takes the cake! I was so surprised (as you can tell in the photo - please note the traditional Christmas morning sweater).

I hadn't even asked Santa for it but I guess he (er - she) knows me so well that she knew I'd love it. Thanks, Mama ... I mean, Santa! I also got some cute pastel mixing bowls, stemless wine glasses, cooking presses and decorating supplies, utensils and so on!

The boys in our family, FD, Brother, BIL, were all very excited when they opened their joint gift from Dad Santa - a fishing trip at a resort in Quebec for this summer. How fun!

Even though this is Little H's second Christmas, it was even more exciting than last. When he woke up and walked into the living room with is daddy and saw all of the presents, his eyes got really wide and he said "Wow-y". He got bored of opening presents after about 5 minutes, but he had tons of fun playing with all of his new toys and thought playing in the leftover paper was a blast!

The rest of Christmas day was spent eating brunch, watching movies, playing games, and eating Christmas dinner.

On Boxing Day (all you Americans, click here if you don't know what Boxing Day is) my grandparents, aunt and uncle and cousins came over for Christmas dinner. Again, we had a day of games, food, and relaxing ... I'm beginning to see a theme here.

My mom had a present wrapped for my grandma and I to open. I think I've mentioned before that my parents live in the house my grandparents used to live in and their store manager lives in the house I grew up in. Apparently, he was moving some shelving units around in the basement of my old house, and came across this. We guessed I probably made it when I was about 8 years old. We all got a kick out of this! If you can't read it, it says "Congratulations to Phil Kirkland. You are awarded for being the best Grandmother in the world. Signed, Lindsay Kirkland".

The siblings all left my parents house on Sunday to either go back to work or to their other families Christmases, but the FD and I stayed until Monday evening. On Sunday we went to see Sherlock Holmes, which I thought was pretty good. And then, on Monday, my mom and I headed to the city near them to do some Boxing Day shopping! I was impressed with the deals that were available!

After that, we went back to my parents house, had some dinner and then packed up to come home. We arrived home yesterday evening, unpacked the car, threw a load of laundry in and crashed. I've spent today reorganizing things, cleaning, and doing laundry in preparation for our company to arrive tomorrow and stay until the end of the week!

Christmas seemed to go by so quickly this year, but it was a wonderful time spent with our families and friends. The countdown to next Christmas starts NOW!