La Navidad 2009

It was another whirlwind Christmas at our house!  We fulfilled an annual tradition on “Christmas Eve-Eve”  in our house, driving to 34th Street in Baltimore to see the displays the homeowners there have assembled every year since the 1947 classic film Miracle on 34th Street debuted.  A great start to the annual Christmas festivities.

When we got married, Fred’s mom assigned us Christmas Eve dinner as “our” holiday (his oldest sister Lisa has Thanksgiving with her husband … we’re still waiting for his other older sister Kathryn to get hers. [Hey Kath!])  Then Christmas Day begins with just the four of us here, a brunch at Fred’s mom’s, back to our house to host my side of the family, and then the end-of-day hang-out with friends so we can decompress and review the highlights (or funniest moments).

This year’s biggest surprise for the twins didn’t actually involve spending money.  They’ve been dying to watch the Star Wars movies for quite some time now, but we thought they were a little young.  Then this year they managed to check out every Early Reader book on Star Wars the county library system has to offer, memorized all the characters, and saved up their allowance money jointly to buy Lego Star Wars for the Wii, thus gaining knowledge of much of the plotline of the series.  And for his final oral presentation at our co-op, Bear gave a persuasive speech about why he should be allowed to watch the Star Wars movies.  And he had good points.

So their surprise was that we borrowed the whole set of six movies from a friend, and we’re going to watch them over the course of the week while Fred’s off work.

And I found some really cute costumes for their favorite stuffed animals to go along with the theme.  Those did cost money, as Fred keeps reminding me.  ‘Cause they were from “Build A Bear Workshop.”  Not cheap.  But I tell myself they’re getting the $12/apiece worth of enjoyment out of them. 

Hope you all had a great holiday, as well!

34th Street, Baltimore

The Snow Held All the Way Till Christmas!  (and then got rained away in a day…)

Table Set…

…And we had a kids’ table this year (when did I get this old?!!!)

The big people’s table (Fred’s side of the family), minus me:

Here I am!  (mamarazzi)

My knights (who ate their Nerf swords, no lie, so we’ll see if we can manage not to kill each other with wooden ones)

Switching to a Western motif , with their favorite cousin

Christmas morning (pre-coffee, if you can’t tell from Fred’s face) 

A very excited José, showing his monkey his new Darth Vader outfit

The best-dressed stuffed animals on our block

My side of the fam (minus Fred… gotta use the tripod one of these times!)

A handsome sibling set, if a proud firstborn does say so herself!

Off to bed…

… but yes, they were all ready for Star Wars this morning when we woke up!

Some of the best things in life are free (thx, TÍo Chris!)