Mele Kalikimaka From Bristow, Virginia

Granny And Her Girls

Christmas Morning Sky

Well, it's 8:00 and we have just finished opening all the presents.  The girls, needless to say are excited, especially our thirteen year old granddaughter, Hayden, who received a Mac Air from Santa. What a good guy.  Halle's big presents were a new desk, chair, lamp and a gymnastic mat.  So it's been a Merry Christmas for all.  Hayden was awake from 4:30 on, she was so excited. Everyone was up by 7:00, though I was the first one down at 6:30.

Yesterday was a fun day, not too much stress, and only three trips off to the stores for last minute gifts and food stuffs. It was a lousy day out, gray and wet with drizzle just about the entire day so we hung out inside, watching some basketball, wrapping presents, and getting ready for the big day, Christmas. The main event was going to be decorating some cookies in between neighbors stopping by and dropping off cookies or bottles of wine.

Halle and Anna at Work

We spent a couple of hours in the afternoon with Drew's good friend, Terrence, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, and  a member of his wedding.  His wife had recently died after a long illness, and he needed to get out of the house with his daughter.  So it was nice of Drew to ask them over so that his daughter Anna could decorate cookies with the girls.  While the girls decorated cookies, we sat around and mostly let Terrence talk, something it seemed he needed to do.  We had a couple of beers, enjoying talking with Terrence who we had not seen since July when he and his wife came to Drew's retirement party.

Relaxing After Decorating Cookies

Around 4:00, they left though Anna was having such good time with Evie that she did not want to leave.  As she was leaving, her last words were my Mom died, breaking all our hearts.  It's so hard for them because she is too young to really know what not having her Mom means.  But it was good for both of them to get away for a few hours.

'Chillin' and 'Grillin'

For dinner, we brought the steaks Evie won at the Viking Club.  We rubbed them with Thai fish sauce on Monday and let them age in the refrigerator until we grilled them around 7:00.  They were outstanding, perfectly cooked and amazingly tender.  Jill made roasted rosemary potatoes, mushrooms, a salad and we devoured everything.  We had, guess what, cookies for dessert, picking through the assortment of cookies, looking for our favorite.

Around 8:00, we all went downstairs to watch ELF once again, with Will Ferrell, one of the more enjoyable Christmas movies even if we have all seen it numerous times.  When it ended, about 10:00, Jill, Drew and I woke up, having slept  through a good part of it.  Only Evie and the girls ended up watching the it to the end.  After the movie, the girls went to bed and we started watching the newest version of Superman but Evie and I were too tired to watch it all, so we went to bed around 11:00.