Our Christmas

Hello 2011!  Happy New Year, my dear friends and family.  During this unintentional -- but much needed -- blog break, we have enjoyed a beautiful holiday.  I have not posted my "favorites of 2010" year-end wrap up, or done many other things that I had intended on, but I feel rested and at peace.  Because who says you can't do a few of those in January?  Or February for that matter?  :-)


On Christmas Eve, our dinner started out with a sampler we had ordered from Salumeria Biellese.

 


We spent the evening in the plesant company of our dear neighbors with a dinner large enough to get us through the rest of the weekend on the leftovers.


Christmas morning I put a Cowboy Christmas Breakfast in to bake (I had put it together the night before), and Greg read the children books while I did the morning dishes and readied our house for the day.

 


Daisy woke up with a fever, so she was languishing on the other couch listening to the reading.  Poor babe.

And then after breakfast, there were the gifts.

 

Some Handmade By Mommy...

 
Embroidered pillow with a cozy flannel backing to match his new pajama pants


 
Tiny felt kitten and a little apron (details to follow soon in a "handmade gift" post)


 
Felt monkeys for my little monkeys


 
A calendar Sparky made for us at school


 
An adorable wall hanging that Max made for us as a Kindergarten project

And hand-drawn pictures a-plenty.

 



 

After all of the gifts and the playing with new toys and eating our Christmas Eve leftovers, there was this: Softly glowing tree, darkness fallen outside the windows, tiny bare feet, a favorite book...
 

Of all of the time and energy and money spent in preparation for this one day, the beauty of a moment like this is the best gift I could ever hope for.

For more pictures of our Christmas, click through to the Flickr set here.