Christmastime

Well, it's been a long time since I've posted and a lot has happened since then. The Holidays always seem to set me back as far as blogging goes. Let's see it started out with a quick visit from Jocelyn. I met up with her on Thursday, Dec. 18 in NYC before she headed north of the city for a wedding. We met up at Penn Station and walked all over the city from there. We went to the Christmas Fair at Bryant Park and saw the tree at Rockefeller Plaza (check out the video of the sparkly tree and skaters):



We then took the subway to the upper west side and had a fabulous dinner and then after walking and shopping just a little bit more we headed up to my friend Meg's apartment where we treated ourselves to some ice cream and then spent the night on an honest-to-goodness, pull-it-down-from-the-wall Murphy bed.

In the morning we took the subway all the way to Grand Central, grabbed a real NY bagel for breakfast and met up with Jocelyn's friends. And then they headed into the snow to go to the wedding they had all flown into town for. It was fun to see her friends, even if briefly, since I hadn't seen them since her wedding.

I ended up going to John and Jill's and hanging out with the kiddos for some pre-Christmas fun decorating the tree, drinking egg nog and just enjoying a warm home while the snow piled up outside. On Saturday John and I headed into the city to do some Christmas shopping at Fishs Eddy and see a show at the Whitney that I really wanted to catch (again) before it closed. It was Corin Hewitt's Seed Stage. I'm so glad I went back, and I have to say, I think the Whitney is one of my favorite museums in NYC. I also got to go to the Union Square Farmers Market and picked up some great root vegetables that I ended up using in a root gratin. Once we had done everything we needed to do, I took the train back to Princeton and John headed back home on the bus. It was a great little jaunt in NYC.

I had to work the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Christmas but ended up taking the day off on Christmas Eve (Wednesday) because I thought I would have to get Jocelyn from JFK Airport. Her flight had been cancelled and the earliest flight they could guarantee her a seat on wasn't until Christmas Day. Thankfully, she got on a standby flight in time to be home for Christmas Eve with her husband and 2 year old. While it would have been fun to see her again, I'm so glad she got to be home with her family sooner rather than later. I was on my way to the airport when she called with the good news that she got on the flight, so I turned North and headed to John and Jill's again. I spent the night there and then went back to Princeton to pack up for the Holidays at my parents. I picked up some delicious bread from the Witherspoon Bread Company and an amazing Banana Chocolate Chip Cake from Olives in Princeton and then headed down to mom and dad's armed with loads of laundry and tons of gifts for family and friends. I got there just in time to go out for Chinese with my parents and my Grammy, since that has recently become our tradition for Christmas Eve. It was a great meal, as always, and on the way home we did a little "light ride" and drove past all of the pretty lights. This is so fun to do with my Grammy who never tires of seeing the houses that go "all out" for the holidays. And her expressions are priceless! Every (well decorated) house gets a big "Ohhh..." and "Ahhh..." and sometimes "Oh, would you look at that!" or just simply "Wow" if there's really nothing else to say. It's fun for everyone.

On Christmas Day it was just my parents and I and we had a lovely, lazy day opening gifts that Santa had left under the tree, enjoying each other's company and talking to family on the phone. We had a nice dinner and after that I headed out to see Slumdog Millionaire with friends from high school, Mike and Meg. This is also something that has become a tradition since we ususally seem to all be in town for the holiday. We all really enjoyed the movie, I recommend it if you haven't seen it yet.

The 26th started out with John and Jill and the Kiddos coming to mom and dad's pretty early in the morning. They are all ridiculous early risers, so even with a 2 hour drive, I think they were there by 9am at the latest. We had a blast giving and getting gifts and watching the boys open their presents. Sebastian was particularly enthusiastic and even wanted to help other people open their presents. Emerson was a little overwhelmed by all the commotion and opened his presents one at a time, just enjoying each one. (Somehow I have no photos of this whole time at my parents. I think everyone else was taking the photos for once.)

One of my favorite gifts this year (both to give and to receive) was the game Bananagrams. It's similar to Scrabble in that it's a word game and you have to put words together in sort of a crossword style, but it's easy to play with a bigger number of people (up to 8) and it's much more fast-paced. The whole family quickly took a liking to it and we all played (the adults that is) for many, many rounds while the kids played with their new toys. It was a great way to spend time around the kitchen table, eating snacks and enjoying each other's company. John and Jill and the kids left in the evening and the house seemed so quiet once they were gone. I had the pleasure of meeting up with Brian, my friend from high school who now lives in London and our friend Meg at the good old Phily Diner. We spent about 4 hours and $20 on mozzarella sticks, ice cream and tea and ended up giving our sweet waitress about 100% tip. It's always good to hear about what folks are up to and if all goes as planned, I might be making my way out to visit Brian at some point this year.

On the 27th my parents left to bring my Grammy back to her home in Western PA and then traveled up to Buffalo to see my mom's sisters. That evening I hosted a dinner party for my high school friends Meg, Mike, Kim and her son Alex. It was so nice to host them in my parent's nice kitchen and I made a lovely little pasta dish and Kim brought homemade cookies and we had veggies and dip and brie and crackers and good bread and a salad and then after dinner we exchanged gifts with each other and played board games. We played a round of a new game that Mike had gotten for Alex and then we all played Bananagrams. I'm telling you, this game is good. Brian stopped by just long enough to play a few rounds of Bananagrams. Here's Alex, Kim, Mike, Brian and Meg ready to play another round!

I spent the night alone at my parent's house and then headed back to Princeton to unpack, get my house in order and gear up for a couple more days at work. I had to work on Monday and Tuesday, but was looking forward the whole time to heading out to Minneapolis to see Jerri and Mark and Zoe on Wednesday, New Years Eve.

I actually ended up having dinner with John, Nathaniel and Sebastian at Conte's Pizza in Princeton because John had left his camera at my parents and it was the easiest way to get it back to him. We had a fun time at the pizza place, which was crowded, but very casual and perfect for the kids, and then we went to Thomas Sweet for ice cream, which was also a lot of fun. Sebastian got a scoop of Egg Nog and Nathaniel got a Blend-In with Mint Oreo ice cream and York Peppermint Patties. He really loves that chocolate-mint combo.

Whew! Well that sums up the Christmas portion of my holidays. It was busy, fun, full of friends and family, good food, board games and movies. Couldn't ask for too much more.