Home With Bells On

We've gone back home for Christmas every year since we moved away, except for 2005 when Cameron was born. It's a lot of work, it's exhausting and someone always ends up sick. We have seconds thoughts about doing it again but somehow we always do. I think we end up with amnesia and don't remember what it was was like the year before. However, this year, everything went without a hitch, the kids were so good, and we came home feeling fairly good. What a relief! It was still a heck of a lot of work, but getting to see the kids skate, slide, snowmobile, snowshoe and visit with people we don't see often, makes it all worth while.

I took a lot of pictures of course, but I've decided to share some of the smaller things that make our crazy trip so worth it. These are the things we will remember years from now...not the temper tantrums, the coughs, and the lack of sleep.


First off...our visit from Santa. The people at GM City in Kirkland Lake have a special deal for people who buy vehicles from them....you give them your business and they hook you up with The Big Man himself on Christmas Eve.

We always go over to Ede's (my parent's friends) on Christmas Eve...they are also GM drivers!!

Don't we look nice in our new jammies?

Have you seen the IKEA commercial where they guy hands his girfriend a tennis racket shaped gift that turns in to a chair when she opens it?

Cameron was a little upset about the jersey at first because he considers himself "Papa's Hockey Baby", but he got over it. Hockey's kind of a big deal around our place as you can see. Cameron also got skates and a hockey stick and Keith got tickets for a Sabres game.

I have a really had time getting rid of some of the kid's clothes. I don't know why, but they mean so much to me. I've been trying really hard to only keep the extra special ones, and I settle for looking at pictures of the kids in the rest. I keep thinking someday, when my kids are grown up, I'll get the opportunity to see those clothes again on their children.

Keith's Mom has held to a few pieces of Keith's that Sydney and Cameron both got to wear, and now Sydney is getting to wear some of mine. She wore a beautiful blue smocked dress for Easter a couple years ago, but for Christmas, we pulled out my famous green velvet dress with a smocked pinnafore that my Aunt Mary Ruth made for me when I was 6 or 7 years old. My sister Lindsay, and I think our cousin Annie, had matching dresses. My Mom brought my sister and I to be photographed by a friend in these dresses and I think everyone in the family had a copy of it.

I let Sydney chose if she wanted to wear her new satin kimono looking dress or the green velvet dress Christmas day. She could wear the other Christmas Eve. I was soooooo happy when she chose the green one for Christmas day. It just happened that my cousin Angelina was wearing a green velvet dress as well. So I took these pictures for my Grandparents.

The pinnafore is a bit too big, but I plan to fix it up and take her to a real photographer as well. So don't worry Mary Ruth, you'll get a picture of her by herself in it!

(you can see why it's so hard to get nice pictures of Cameron!)

Memere's tequilla shots have become my favourite Christmas tradition...it's so popular with the girl's in the family (and only girl's are allowed) that the ceremony is now performed at Easter, Thanksgiving and family weddings! (Yes, she carries a flask in her purse for such events!). She told me that she woke up in the middle of the night Christmas Eve panicking because she suddenly remembered she didn't have any lemons! When she woke up later in the morning, she called one of my Aunt's to see if she had any in her fridge to bring with her! It's serious business!

Cameron hanging out with a couple of his second cousins.

I'm not sure what is more impressive...Cameron helping out or Uncle Doug cleaning!!

Can you tell it's close to the end of the week and the Natives are getting restless?

Edible mice made from Oreos, chocolate dipped cherries and Kisses!

This is Alex, Keith's new Godson. Don't you just want to pinch his cheeks?

We spent New Year's Eve with some of our old high school buddies out in Larder Lake. We hadn't been all together since Alex's Mom and Dad's wedding almost two years ago.