Coming Down

The whimpered end of Christmas has come upon us yet again, content to sit idly for another 12 months, allowing us needed and welcomed respite.  Keeping our tree up until January 5th allows us to bask in the afterglow just a little bit longer, giving us the time needed to be just a little bit sick of the twinkling lights and garland-swaddled railings, letting the natural course of our sentiment come full-circle, naturally allowing us to remove it all without a shred of guilt. 

Christmas was wonderful, magical, sweet and exhausting, all at the same time.  Nearly strangers to entertaining at home, we hosted an unprecedented two gatherings in as many days, having our next-door-neighbors over on Christmas Eve, and my parents over on Christmas Day, thoroughly enjoying both.  Steve cooked for each event (oh, goodness, do any of you need any food??  I'm still completely stuffed and the fridge is still full!) and Sammi, while tired and a bit overloaded by all the activity, was her usual charming (and very busy) self.

Below is the first installment of Christmas photo overload.  In the first photo, Sammi sports her pajamas, enhanced by the gorgeous frilled skirt sent by Uncle John and Aunt Cynthia.  I eventually took the jammies off of her, but made sure the skirt stayed - just beautiful!

Sammi and her prized gift (well, prized at least until Gramma and Grampa showed up and brought the gift-to-end-all-gifts...  LOL - stay tuned for my next post...), a cash register, something she's been wanting for some time now.  Yes, yes, yes, I swore long ago that we'd never have anything with the word Barbie attached to it taint enter our household, but with young daughters comes great flexibility of former riders of non-conformist high horses.  Yes, that would be me...  And really, this little thing is pretty darn cool (notice I don't mention the 5 Barbie dolls, Barbie bike, Barbie laptop computer, Barbie movie and Barbie lifeguard chair that have already sneakily tiptoed into our lives, completely circumnavigating our watchful eyes...).

Partial aftermath.  Hurricane Sammi, on the quest for actual toys, stymied by board games and books, tore through present after present, announcing after each, "A different present, please."  We corrected her by suggesting she ask for "another" present, but the look on her face spoke volumes for the fact that she knew exactly what she was asking for in the first place, thankyouverymuch.  Of course we gave her the cash register to open last, which seemed to be the long-awaited answer to her hopes and dreams, shattered repeatedly over the previous hour...

I just love this little ornament, painstakingly crafted by our neighbor.  Absolutely gorgeous, and the teeny, tiny little details are impossible to go unnoticed.  This will be treasured for a long time to come.

Nana called from England to wish us a Happy Christmas.  Samantha was so excited to speak to her and tell her she'd just gotten a cash register from Santa!  Nana, speaking English English, had no idea what Sammi was talking about until Daddy got back on the phone and explained Sammi had just received a till...  See, we forget that there's still a language barrier between English speaking countries, even though we are reminded and given options for translation online by both Facebook and Fedex...

Upon hearing that our next door neighbor's cat, Seamus, has a penchant for dressing up in, uh, clothing, Samantha just had to go and witness his transformation into Christmas elf for herself.  This was her only brief sojourn into the outside world on Christmas Day - notice what beautiful weather we had, too!  For privacy purposes, I will refrain from posting photos of the cat.  But let's just say, he looked very comfortable and confident in his outfit...

Beef Wellington - that's what's for dinner (along with Yorkshire puddings, mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, asparagus soup, and braised leeks and carrots, finished off by a gorgeous chocolate cake baked by my mother)!  YUM - great job, Steve!!!!

And so it's back to work for me, another week off for the Princess, and as we look ahead to the next 12 months filled with activities, holidays, and other joyous events that go so quickly, we are again reminded of the swift passage of time, more wrinkles cropping up to taunt us with much of the same.

How do you decompress and come back down to earth after the Christmas hubub?

By the way, for those of you who may not have watched it last night or who may not have read about it already on someone else's blog, please watch this clip from lastnight's ABC News about Reece's Rainbow and the Cox Family's journey to adopt little Kareen (now Mia) from the Ukraine.  It's an important story about the plight of children with Down syndrome (and other disabilities) in eastern European orphanages...