Well it's been an age since I posted anything. But I'm finally posting some pics of our Christmas Celebrations. We had a lot fun this year. I attribute this to shifting the focus a bit. Instead of trying to figure out the best gifts to buy we challenged each other to make something personal and heartfelt. We didn't shop on Black Friday, we barely went into any stores at all (so you can blame us for the failing economy!) Instead we thought about what we'd like to tell each other, or share. Francesca made pictures or stories for each person. Tori make a poster for her dad and mini albums for the rest of us. Kathleen made an "ABCs of You" scrapbook for each person. Barry made Tori a shadow box commerating her 16th birthday party, Francesca a Baptism Box, and searched for some meaningful pics for a cute photo display for Kathleen and her mom. Sure it was more work, and more planning...but it was well worth it. We usually don't shed tears on Christmas morning ...but this year there we several gifts that made us cry ... happy tears! Our one big splurg was a family gift. On the 15th we went to see The Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck in Philadelphia. It was pretty awesome. It really helped with any residual feelings of "this is a less-than Christmas".
Of course we had lots of yummy food too. One of our favorite meals was on Christmas Eve. We did a fondue dinner. We marinated steak and chicken cut into bitesized bits, along with various vegetables and some shrimp. We then used my Christmas gift from last year, an electronic fondue pot. Each person got to fry their bits in hot oil. We had so much fun, and had so much leftover that we had it for Christmas dinner too. On New Year's Day we used it again -- for fruit this time, dipping it in chocolate. Yummy!! I love that little fondue pot!
It was a great Christmas! We hope yours was wonderful too!
