It's beginning to look a lot like...

Oh, what the heck, at our elevation in Southern California, this is a snow drift.

The Real Meaning of Christmas

Our megastore Christmas tree has been shedding needles since the day we brought it home, so in the interest of fire safety (and frustration removal), the boys are disassembling it on the front lawn.

Later Afternoon Christmas

The whole gang arrived at about 1PM. We ate guacamole and chips and salsa (pictured above), then opened presents.

Then we ate. There was:

One large tray of green chile and chicken enchiladas, one large tray of chicken enchiladas with red sauce, and a tray of chicken taquitos.

One whole ham.

One pineapple upside down cake, two pumpkin pies, and one apple pie.

More than 100 cookies.

Coffee (to ward off the nighty-night syndrome brought on by eating all that food).

Aftermath, part 1

Christmas morning

We got up late (8AM) because James had a hard time getting to bed. Ricky arrived shortly after.

Adrienne baked and cooked and cooked and cooked 'til after midnight last night. (I forgot to pick up the tamales from the restaurant so from 4:30PM yesterday we had to make a new plan for food.)

We put the local "Yule Log" channel on, and opened presents while I fed the first real fire we have had in our fire place. We had dueling Yule logs.

I put the ham in the oven at 10:30AM at 325 degrees on tin foil with nothing covering it. The package says 15 min per pound. I have no idea if I am doing it right. Luckily Adrienne made enchiladas and taquitos and pineapple upside down cake and and and...

Yukon Cornelius is my hero

Yukon Cornelius: We'll have to outwit the fiend with our superior intelligence.
Rudolph: How?
Yukon Cornelius: Douse your nose and run like crazy!

The day before the day before Christmas

Today, James and I played catch in the backyard. He actually catches now; he used to just bat the ball in the air and laugh as it fell. I think I will miss that.

We play almost every day since I have been on break. He assigns me a name when we play. I have been named "Struggles" and "Baby Paradise." Today I am "Kayak."

James, who also named himself "Kayak," stopped me to look at a spider climbing on his miniature basketball hoop, stopped me to look at the berry stem he found (what kind of berry is that, anyway?) and came in to show me a bee hovering over a flower. We watched the bee buzz from blossom to blossom.

Strange that three days ago James and I romped in the snow not an hour from here...












<------It took five stores to find boots.