Christmas 2010

Our Christmas in 2010 was very quiet and peaceful.  We had such a busy month between November 14 through December 18 that I am glad we had a peaceful time.  Gigi came to visit us on Friday before Christmas and she stayed until Monday morning.  Megan and Will were so excited to see her.  This was the first time she had been to the new house.  She even had her own "suite" downstairs to get away from all of the Christmas noise and confusion. 

In recent years I have been trying to cut down on the amount of presents that I give.  I grew up where we had so much in presents and stuff.  The presents that I remember the best were the ones listed on my Christmas list to Santa.  So I tried to make sure that Santa brought at least one thing from each child's list for Christmas.  Since Megan wanted a Nintendo Wii and a  Nintendo DX Santa compromised and brought a Wii.  Both children loved it, after we showed them how to play.  David and I even enjoy playing with it.  I really like to bowl, while Will's favorite is the airplanes in Wii Sports Resort.  He likes to fly and crash them into the water.  Megan enjoys playing Frisbee with the puppies and David likes golf.

As you can see Megan had to dig under the tree to get the gifts.  She kept looking for more for her, although she had already unwrapped all of her presents.   Megan's unwrapping approach is to grab all of her gifts, unwrap, then move on to the next gift.  In contrast, Will likes to unwrap and play with his gift until he realizes that he has another gift to unwrap.  Sometimes that is an hour later.  For Christmas Will wanted "Cars and books, that's all."  So for his gifts I bought a bunch of Cars that he did not have, wrapped them in tissue paper, then put them into a great big box.  He loved it!  He also loved the books he got.  He mainly found books about Disney Cars and one DK Eyewitness guide to cars.  He enjoys looking at them even several months later.  Megan wrote a long list of things for Christmas that she wanted.  I was torn on what to get her.  I finally decided to try to add to the collections she already had.  She got an American Girl, Rebbecca, from Mama B, and we gave her some American Girl clothes for Elizabeth her other doll.  She also received some books and art supplies. 

A couple of years ago I bought this Santa pan from Williams Sonoma.  I thought that it was pretty cool!  It is a 3 dimensional cake pan.  I have been waiting for Christmas to come around so I finally have a chance to make the cake.  The cake recipe I used is from Bell's Best, a Mississippi favorite cookbook!  A chocolate granache is holding the two pieces of cake together.   I was pretty impressed with myself that the two halves of the cake did not fall apart.  It was really good, but it did dry out rather quickly since I did not have a good container to put it in. 

I think that about sums up our Christmas.  I know I am posting this a couple of months later, but one of my New Year's Resolutions is to try to keep up with the blog.  I know my family and friends appreciate the news.  Talk to you soon.