Christmas 2012

Has it really been almost a month since Christmas?  This is so overdue.  What's most pathetic about my silence is that I actually uploaded all these photos on January 3, then proceeded to wait until I got around to adding the photos from my phone, which turned out to mostly not be any good anyway. Work also started the year with a major deadline that had me distracted most evenings, and then I have a good excuse - we were positively leveled by the horrible cold that has been going around.  Grace went down last Saturday, I succumbed Monday night, and Steve on Thursday.  Grace attended 2/3 of a day of school (6 or 16 in her class were out on one day), I worked in the office one half day and the rest of the week from bed or the couch, and Steve spent the weekend in bed.  Anyway, we're all still hacking away but mostly feeling well.  So much for starting the year off all caught up!  I wonder if this is a sign of what 2013 has in store...

OK, then.

We headed north early the Saturday before Christmas.  There had been serious snowstorms around Shasta and throughout the Siskiyous so we weren't sure how the trip would go, but we were armed with our chains and figured we would take the drive at whatever pace we needed to.  Turns out Steve's ambitious two stops approach (worked last time) didn't work so well with the preggo in the passenger seat.  But, the storms had mostly let up and we only hit a few patches of snow.  We had agreed that if we hit Portland by 6PM we would continue onto Bellingham, if we didn't hit it till 7PM or after, we would stop.  I think the plan would have been to just argue a lot if we got there between 6 and 7 PM (I have a major fear of/neurotic obsession with driver-fatigue).  We crossed the Columbia River at 6 PM on the dot, merrily singing "Roll On, Columbia, Roll On" - a fun family tradition that I think is fun and Steve and Grace seem to think is absurd.  Whatever.

So anyway, we had really wanted to make the trip in one day (we rolled into my mom's driveway at about 11 PM) so that we could start the trip on the right note with a very lazy day.  And we did.  

We spent the days leading up to Christmas barely leaving the house, but for a quick trip to the bookstore and Casa Que Pasa (seriously, the hooligans who work there look at me like I don't belong, but they should know that I've been going there since they were in diapers... i wish i was exaggerating).    We dug through the attic for Mark's and my childhood toys, which included an old ballet costume that Grace wore around the house for most of the rest of the trip.  We cooked and baked, including a - successful! - gingerbread experiment.  We attended the children's mass at church, and Grace was so intrigued by the kids in costumes.  We ate a lot.  It was a rather idyllic, cozy holiday.

And, Grace was so excited about Christmas this year.  She totally "got it", and I loved watching her joy.    She was also thrilled to be with her GoGo, her Pop, her Bucket AND her Lindee all at once.