#2b) christmas day

i think this may have been the first christmas morning of my life that i slept in to 7something. it's a bitter sweet thing. it was sarah that woke us up to come and watch them open their stockings. adriel was opening his. he's so cute. he was pulling car after car out of his stocking and saying in his little adriel squeal "another one!". he also got some candy lego. real lego that would stack, but he wasn't interested in that. "look you--", kyle tried to show him, "it's CANDY!. i want to eat it! it's candy!" said his eager little boy.

sarah got some good things, some of which were stashed in the 'sleeves' of her stocking. kyle said the sleeves were the best part of sarah's stocking. kyle liked his hat and his woodchuck stockings.

we went and hung out in the living room and called to pester mom and dad into coming over.


bethany in a cozy blanket. she's got no nose, you know. very sad. shhhh. don't say anything. she's sensitive.

i know this one is blurry from adriel moving his head, but i still think the expression on his little, chubby-cheeked, congenial, ghost face is so funny and cute. note the gayly wrapped presents under the tree behind the ghost child.

the chubby tree itself, fringed with chuck's uvula flake and friends.

that's what time it was.

adriel opens a present.

bethany gave amy the cutest, coolest elephant tea pot.

dad got a present from his best friend and i do believe i heard his voice catch when he read the tag aloud. he's in love with our mom.

ben arrived in the middle of it all and was promptly assaulted by wifey. wifey got the present she wanted for christmas.

amy in her cute convertables from bethknee.

now equiped with a nose, bethany subsequently grew a third arm presumably to help in opening presents and yet strangely inept for this purpose. please note cool indian nesting dolls in foreground.

amy wore the jingle bell earring. note the cool new jackut. speaking of present opening, i got some thai house curry from sneaky mom and dad, and karey gave me some ruby red popcorn (no it does NOT taste like grapefruit, brent and others of like mindedness), some awesome binocs, a fun bracelet from china town in new york (thanks for thinking of me while in the big apple karey!), and THE book of hers that i loved when i was visiting her in the summer. it's all about these cool places to visit in canada with beautiful pictures. i love it. i also got some paper soap. i bet elicia's jealous.

it wasn't long before ev and esther arrived with more presents. esther gave me a cool beaten metal bracelet of a pewter coloured metal and big hoop earrings of the same colour. she also gave me a very esther wallet that i like a lot, and i nice big cook book with pictures--all recipes only t ake 30 minutes. on top of all of that, evan gave me one of his lenses so i promptly took these with it:

masterpieces of grossness, i know. it's good when a brother and a sister can work together to create something truely disturbing.

i took this of amy's eye just before she left to have christmas with andreas.

i slept.

i ate sugary treats.

i showered.

i don't remember what else.

i went and picked up esther's mom and dad. carmen and evan were so cute. they both really wanted me to come in, but i left my shoes in so i stayed at the top of the stairs. i carried the stuffing and vilma the gravy. esther's pops carried the turkey. i was later to discover that this was a turkey marianated in beer and wrapped in bacon. i'm not going to lie to you, it was good. and brent's turkey was a masterpiece that people could not stop talking about--especially the brown meat. i didn't try the brown meat though because by the time i found out that it was exceptionally good, i was terribly full. we made the rs room as homey as possible by dragging the couch, red chairs and mother's room chairs in. we also stole the foyer's christmas tree.

this is where layne opened his presents from me. he liked them and put them all on. i think he looked really good in his american eagle shirt. sarah bought kyle the same one in blue. we want them to be twins.

we had the best dessert ever-- costco caramel apple crumble pie with butterscotch ripple ice cream. layne, bethany and i were the dessert crew. bethany and i reserved for ourselves the most butterscotch ripplest scoops and later when we saw some unclaimed plates floating in melting ice cream we felt it our duty to save them. it was then that i began to really feel that my blood was made of pure sugar (syrup form).

we played the new pictionary with the challenge dice which ended up being quite challenging indeed. especially the keep your pencil on the page one. sarah and bethany were plagued with repeats of the draw with your eyes closed one and dad very nearly rebeled against the draw with your opposite hand one on more than one occassion.

and that was christmas day more or less.