Christmas 2011, part 2

Per what seems to be our burgeoning tradition on the St. Pierre side of the family, on the heals of our Santa’s Elf weekend, we held the St. Pierre family Christmas part 1… The upshot of it was that Dave had to work all weekend (thanks to a company move that he had to be a lead man for) and the girls and I packed ourselves into Auntie Erin and Uncle Chris’ car. It made for a fun ride down. That weekend was, of course, a blast for the girls. I, of course, failed to bring my camera.

So, on to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, aka St. Pierre-side Christmas part 2…

Given that we were set to host a houseful for New Year’s Eve brunch, I pushed our Christmas cookie-making to just before Christmas again so that we’d have cookies for the party. That made for a hectic but fun pre-dinner activity! Dinner, of course, being the most important part of the day .

After the cookies and some excellent Chinese takeout (next year we think we can venture to an actual restaurant), the girls were pumped, ready to burst with anticipation for the big arrival.

So, we placated them by allowing them to (strategically) open a couple of gifts (pajamas and Erin & Chris’s gift so they could be part of the fun). Which made for pretty cute pix:

The next morning, it took little to remind the girls of what they had to look forward to and little to get them tearing into the piles of presents under the tree.

Amidst the new books and baby dolls and totes and towels were lots of smiles…Ok, and lots of “More?”s from Maggie What can I say? the girl was finally in on it for real this year!

The rest of Christmas day was pretty lovely and mellow…and then dark and cold, thanks to “End of the year wind storm, 2011!” (Read: we lost electricity.) But, it was a great excuse to keep it really mellow (OK, the smoky fire didn’t make me so mellow, but I got over it eventually…) and it failed to completely derail Dave’s planned Xmas dinner yumminess: slow-cooked ribs. Turns out, they don’t really have to be slow cooked to be fabulous!

So all in all I think we can claim a certain level of greatness for this holiday. Thanks to Chris and Erin, Nana and Pepere for making it merry and bright (even without electricity!)