ok. i lied. actually christmas celebrations. like not christmas adjacent. cookie or gingerbread houses.
a few days before dec 25 calendar christmas, there was the grandlidbom swedish christmas. which i documented very poorly this year. i literally only have these three pics. hazel and her selections from the buffet. ha. ruby, in all of her majesty, happy to be shredding wrapping paper. and, well, the aftermath of all the opening and all of ruby’s shredding. more like the midddlemath. but whatever. merry swedish christmas.
and then, in the blink of an eye this year, it was christmas morning. unable to sleep past 5 am these days, i was able to sneak down and enjoy some quiet coffee before the mayhem. it’s the last time this cluttered view won’t give me anxiety and i savored it.
eventually, the kids all rolled in, ready to find out what santa brought them. so different at 11, 14 and 17 than at 1, 4, and 7. for sure. we assembled for our obligatory tree pic with ruby. it took many attempts, but there were a few good ones.
once again, i was not great at documenting this year. i really think that having fallen so far behind on this blog, i didnt think i would ever recover or see the need for all of the memory preservation. or maybe i was just lazy. let’s go with “being present in the moment”.
anyways. the kids all seemed happy with their hauls. ike’s was small but still expensive. gaming stuff mostly. ruby loves to shred open her gifts, which are also typically items to be destroyed. hazel gifts leaned very heavily towards harry potter. i was a little uncertain, because she seems on the brink of out growing pretend play, but she seemed quite pleased. anna received mostly embroidery themed gifts, which is her new craft obsession.
then we did something a little different this year. instead of preparing an entire breakfast feast for just our posse, we invited over a few friends who were not celebrating with family this year. hazel’s classmate ella and her family came over, along with our friends, the muncy’s. we had a brunch time type thing, although i’m not sure what the technical definition of brunch is. our thing wasn’t as fancy as i always assume brunches to be.
we had a lazy afternoon. tidying up. finding homes for all of our new crap. etc. and then derek’s parents came over later, bringing chinese takeout with them, and we had a pretty low key dinner and evening. and christmas 2024 was officially in the books.
let’s get those decorations down.