Christmas 2006

This was the Christmas card I sent. I made it and Kenny printed them for me and created the border. After not sending any photos last year and not sending any cards the year the before, I was happy these came out so well.

It was a wonderful Christmas. Having my parents visit on Christmas proper was a rare treat. My good friend Pat was also spending the holidays with us. This is how I had the den decorated:
Here is my Christmas tree- a 8-9 footer that drank not one drop of water even though the bottom was cut. It is bone dry! It has to go very soon!

This year we had a lot more Christmas Eve presents than usual, with Pat visiting and my parents being here for Christmas.
This is a close up of the gifts under the tree.

Here is the Liguini Frutta di Mare I made on Christmas Eve. It was really delicious, a wonderful meal not soon to be forgotten. Molto bene! Buon Natale e felice capo d'anno a tutti di voi! Shrimp, scallops, clams and mussels in wine sauce over linguini, you really can't go wrong! Below are friends Kenny and Pat on Christmas Eve and my mom in the background and Tommy is "relaxing" on the couch. Santa brought me everything I wanted and more. Guess who got tickets to Cirque du Soleil? I guess I have been a very good girl this year! Honestly it was so much work preparing for these 2 days, but it was all worth it. We had wonderful food and lots of drinking going on. We played Scattergories, Pat's first time. She was okay...well I won except the rum and eggnog must have gone to my head because while everyone was on "W" I was on "C"! However even with allowing me 1/2 a point for my answers on that round, I still kicked everyone's jolly butts!
After our fine meal on Christmas Eve, the kids and my parents opened their gifts. I opened a few of mine but Pat and I saved most of ours for Christmas Day. After opening the gifts we went back into the dining room for Tommy's famous apple pie. I should have gotten a picture of his most perfect lattice crust. He actually made 4 pies this year- we had 2 and he gave the other 2 pies as gifts.

Santa Claus arrived - Greg and Andrew were up at 5:30 AM. I got up and 7 and there they were waiting....I am glad they have not grown out of that. I always got up in the middle of the night as a kid. Their father came over at 8AM to watch the opening of the gifts. Pat rolled her hungover self out of bed much later. We had coffee and muffins and not too long after breakfast, egg nog and rum, followed by rum and coke, then white wine. The others switched to then red wine, then beer, and then Amaretto. I made a fresh ham and all the trimmings on Christmas Day. We watched a movie and then football. My mother cleaned my toaster and inside the microwave. The baseboards also got a good scrubbing. It was all good! I am exhausted but this was honestly one of the best Christmases I have ever had. I cleaned up in the gift department as well, getting tossed way more than the usual trinkets I usually get. Happy 2007 to all!