My sister and I were both born in California and moved to Texas when we were 11 and 14 respectively. Rachel moved back to California a year after she graduated high school. Upon returning, she began working in the city and eventually met her now husband. From there love took her a roundabout way to Canada, where Mike is from. (Yep, she married a Mike. I married a Mike. There are uncles named Mike on both sides. It's almost enough to make you think the name Michael is common or something.)
Toronto is now my sister's home—although a foot and a half of snow dumped itself on her "home" recently, giving her reason to rethink all those horrible things she's said about Texas, where a high of 71 is expected later this week. (Rachel, it got very chilly on Saturday, if that makes you hate me less. It actually dipped into the TWENTIES and stayed there for a good hour, I believe.) Anyway, my mom is flying out this Thursday to spend Christmas with my sister and her husband and baby boy and because we'll be apart on Christmas Day, we got together Sunday night to celebrate the holiday with my mom, Mike's parents and Natalie.
Natalie actually came over around 10 that morning, under the guise of quality time with me, and ended up decorating our tree, folding some laundry and mixing cookie dough for a half hour. Lucky girl, that one. We did rough the outdoor mall near my house and, what's more, Central Market. But a day spent with Natalie—even among the holiday crazies—is a good day.
After hours of shopping, cleaning, decorating, cooking and not a single glass-of-wine consuming, it felt much more like Christmas around our house.
Here, look:
(A few things to note in this picture: 1) Our tree is propped up on a stool for reasons I don't quite understand 2) If you ever come visit, I'll force you to sit through a viewing of our wedding album, resting on the coffee table 3) The apparent nature program on the TV is proof that our TiVo queue could cure insomnia and 4) It appears an A&M gift shop threw up in our living room.)
Also, there's PLENTY of room underneath that tree there for Christmas gifts. Hint. Hint.
So, my cooking kick hasn't run its course yet and NO ONE is more surprised about this than I am. For dinner on Sunday we made pizza casserole and veggies. For dessert we had The Pioneer Woman Cooks' blackberry cobbler and Kicky Boots' cookie dough truffles (what I've termed them).
We also watched Todd get crowned sole Survivor and, thankfully, James receive a nice Sprint-sponsored consolation prize of $100,000.
To view the rest of our "Early Christmas" photos, hop on over here.
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I'm a firm believer that you celebrate whenever you get the chance to celebrate. If schedules conflict and birthdays or holidays or anniversaries have to be celebrated the week or month before or after the event, oh well. A date is just a date—no more than a box on a calendar. And it's odd, that I feel this way, because NO ONE likes celebrating more than I do. But I believe that what you're celebrating isn't the number, it's the event, the memories, the rareness of genuine traditions. I was so happy to have family and friends over for food and fun. And even though it was December 16, it sure felt like Christmas.
And really, what's better than that? When life just feels right.
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Also, a conversation that had to be included, from last night:
Mike: What did you just eat?
Jennie: Nothing.
Mike: Really? You didn't eat a cookie dough truffle?
Jennie: Nope.
Mike: You still have melted chocolate on your face.