DeLancey Family Christmas 2011

Our Christmases have usually involved insane travel.  In the 10 years that Lance and I have lived together, we have only stayed in our own house for the holidays once, when I was 8 months pregnant with Logan.  However, this year was our first Christmas home alone without any family members with us, so it was a little lonely, but we still managed to have a good time.

Interestingly, Logan is now close to the age RJ was when we first did Christmas at home, so we think, as was true for RJ back in 2009, that it was a good year to establish our Christmas traditions at home and to reinforce some family traditions that would happen regardless of where we are.

Christmas Eve:
We started by cleaning the house.  This isn't a tradition, but I didn't get to it during the week since I was busy procuring groceries, making teacher gifts, making and drying kluski noodles, etc. on top of all the normal craziness.  Then Logan's naptime involved putting RJ in front of the TV and doing some covert Santa wrapping.  And then cooking.

 I made my Dad's family's traditional Polish Wigilia meal, which involves a fruit compote, mushroom gravy (which is traditionally made with imported dried mushrooms from Poland, but they are crazy expensive out here and I'd have to go to San Francisco to get them - so I used Porcinis, which are close, but not quite the same), homemade kluski, a rice-apple-raisin casserole, boiled potatoes, peas, rye bread, fish (I made beer battered cod, my family has been doing halibut since my grandparents stopped camping and fishing all summer long to have enough bass), and pickled herring.  Last time I made the Wigilia dinner, I forgot the rye bread.  In similar form, this year I remembered the bread, but forgot to make the peas (which is by far the EASIEST to make).

The best moment from this meal was when RJ proclaimed (referring to the pickled herring), "Mom, I like this Polish Sushi!" (which is what I called it to get him to try it). And while RJ and Logan didn't like everything on their plates, both of them tried everything, which I was very happy with.

After eating and clearing the table, the kids opened presents from Grandpa, Great Grandma & Great Grandpa (from whom they would receive gifts on Christmas Eve normally), and got the book "Twas the Night Before Christmas" (to read at bedtime) from us. After opening gifts we drank eggnog and let the kids stay up a little later to play with their new toys.

And then after getting the children nestled all snug in their beds and were satisfied that visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads, mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap did not settle our brains for a long winter’s nap, but instead set to work assembling Logan's Plan City Parking Garage (easy) and RJ's new bike (pure hell) while eating the cookies that RJ so lovingly set out for Santa us (I also made sure to snap the carrots off the carrot tops [returning them to the fridge] to make it look like the reindeer got their treat too).

The end product was a very nice looking display of Santa magic under the tree.

Which brings us to Christmas Morning:

Here Logan enjoys his new
Pillow and Blanket

There's not much to write about Christmas morning.  The kids opened their gifts with fervor and played with them.  And we ate chocolate chip pancakes.  It was how Christmas morning should be.  We actually filmed the whole thing, which is why there aren't a lot of pictures, but someday I will edit and then post the video too.

Christmas Dinner:

Since we were Christmas orphans, our friends the Goldsmiths invited us to share in their family Christmas festivities.  They are Russian Orthodox, so there are some Christmas Eve similarities that we talked about.  RJ and Logan enjoyed playing with Maddie and Hannah and their cousins Jayden and Jack (the kids are all around the same age, so it worked out well).  I was really impressed with RJ at dinner time.  He was really well behaved, stayed in his seat, and ate really well.  I think the delicious food had something to do with that. We started out with the broccoli cheese soup I brought, then had Beef Tenderloin with a side of Horseradish cream sauce, twice baked potatoes, jello salad, asparagus, and bread. After the way RJ ate, he definitely deserved the big dessert of cookies, ice cream, and chocolate cake!  It was an excellent Christmas Evening and we're grateful that Ashley and Jason shared their family with us!

Overall, I think our Christmas was fantastic!  Santa was very good to us!  More pictures here.