Merry Christmas, Vietnam!

Christmas 2010

Life has been a bit of a blur around here lately, and for us Christmas 2010 (observed) is almost over. We'll be heading to Vietnam and Cambodia in a couple of days, and since we'll be traveling over Christmas and New Years, we had Santa come a bit early this year. Leading up to the big day, we continued on with a few of our young traditions and added a couple more. This is what we've been up to:

Putting up the tree...

Stocking the Christmas trunk with books...

Role-playing...

Counting down on Eric Carle's Dream Snow advent calendar...

Reading (mumbling? singing?) a couple of Christmas stories - The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett and Dream Snow by Eric Carle - to Granny and Tom via Skype...

Hosting another Cookies & Cocktails evening...

Continuing with our Christmas Countdown Calendar...

Making edible Christmas wreaths (think Rice Krispie treats with green food coloring and some red hots)...

Adapted from a recipe in Susan Branch's book Christmas Joy...

Delivering holiday treats to school...

Following Mickey's lead...

And having a Christmas camp-out of our own under the tree...

Opening a couple of pre-Christmas gifts (needed items for the camp-out: new pj's for D and an old-fashioned lantern for me)...

Waking up on Christmas Eve morning with nothing better to do than eat Christmas cookies and watch Christmas videos in bed...

Helping Santa deliver the gifts...

Opening stockings (still unfinished due to sewing machine malfunctions - grrr) and gifts on Christmas morning...

Working on a new Christmas puzzle together (Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without a new puzzle)...

And fixing our duvet with a (toy) power saw. As you do.

Several times today, Denis would hug us spontaneously and say one of two things, (a) "We sure are having a good time today. Aren't we, Mama and Papa?" or (b) "When is it going to be real Christmas? You know, with snow?" (We were in North America last Christmas with lots of snow.) As I was tucking him in tonight, he gave me one last hug and said, "We really had a nice Christmas today, didn't we?" In the end, I guess it didn't matter that it didn't snow today. It was a nice Christmas. A real Christmas!