Christmas Pictures

To start, the Christmas tree. Its the first one we've had in this house but it turned out very nice. Mom did most if not all of the decorating and she kept it quite simple. I don't know if you can see here or not but there is a whole flock of handmade ceramic angels near the top. Those are courtesy of my paternal grandmother. (if you click on the picture it should make it bigger and you may be able to see them better)

On to the gifts. There were lots of nice gifts given and received. Robert and I both got a bunch of kitchen stuff. The best reaction was when Mom opened this clock from me. I don't think I've posted about it yet. A few, actually, MANY months ago, Mom gave me the six pictures seen here. They are the first grade photos from her, my dad and each of us four kids. She asked me to do something with them so they could be displayed some how. I put it off and put it off but in September or so Anne (from dinner on Friday) found these awesome clocks somewhere online. They had to be ordered in bulk so she ordered a dozen and we each bought some off of her. When I had the clock in hand I brought the pictures to work, scanned them, re-sized them so they were uniform and added the years. Then I printed them off, cut them down and popped them into the slots along with some Basic Grey paper. I kept the decoration very simple because I wanted the focus to be on the clock itself. Anyways, Mom was *thrilled*. She's not sure where she's going to hang it but she was SO happy with what I came up with. I guess there is something to be said for home made gifts :)

Instead of getting Aaron a bunch of smaller gifts, we all chipped in and gave him a Play Station 2. Because it was such a special gift, I didn't want to just GIVE it to him. I made him work for it by doing a short treasure hunt. I gave him a clue that said "a star shall lead them". On the back of the star on the nativity scene was another piece of paper that said "PIP". That refers to "Picture in Picture" my dad's *favourite* feature on the tv downstairs. on the side of the tv was a paper that had the first part of Aaron's email address. That meant he had to check his email where he found a message that I had sent just before we started opening gifts. That one said "Squeaky Clean" which led him to the bathroom where I had placed the wrapped PS2 on a towel in the bathtub. He was really excited about the game system and forgave me for putting him through the paces like that :) It should be noted that the tshirt and necklace he is wearing were also gifts from Seth.

On Christmas morning it is SO easy to take a zillion pictures. I tried to limit them this year and I made a point of also handing over the camera so I was included. I was designated elf this year so I sat by the tree and distributed the gifts. This picture is me holding a martini glass from Seth & Robert. Remember I posted a few months ago that I'd like to collect funky ones? Well this is number two and it is truly funky. The stem has black and silver stripes on it. Very cool.

Here is a picture of everything I got:
- Measuring cups from mom & dad (one cup, two cups and four cups)
- The martini glass
- Hand Mixer from mom & dad, which I really needed/wanted. The one I have is Mom's old one but there is only one beater. It's frustrating so I'm excited to have a proper one.
- Wooden spoons from Mom & Dad
- A book called "Let's Call it Canada" which has all sorts of trivia on how different places in Canada got their names (also from Mom & Dad)
- Cheese knives and picks from Robert (he knows how much I adore cheese so this is perfect)
- The new Doc Walker cd from Seth. I gave him the name of about ten cd's that I want and this is the one he picked. I'm SO happy. I mean I'll be seeing them live in less then two weeks, it would be good if I am familiar with their new music. I've been listening to it almost non-stop in the car and each time I hear it I like it more. Some people might find it weird to get music for Christmas considering the number of cd's I buy for myself on a regular basis. The thing is, everytime I listen to this cd now I'll think of Seth so it makes it extra special.
- The black thing with Pooh bear on it is a cd holder for my visor. I'll get lots of use out of it.
- Down front is a very pretty candle holder from Aaron. It's shaped like a flower and the petals are a shell of some sort from the Phillipines (he thinks...he doesn't really remember :))
- And last but not least, my very own SCRABBLE DICTIONARY!!! I was SO excited about that LOL. It's one version newer then Mom's and all the pages are intact (her J, Y and Z pages have fallen out). We've already gotten lots of use out of it and I can't wait to use it more.

So that was our Christmas. I'll leave you with a few shots of us playing games. Seth having a conversation with the rabbit and me enjoying dessert while keeping score for Scrabble.

It was a good day. I hope your holiday was as enjoyable as mine!

~Heidi