Quick Takes #168 Christmas Recap

1. Christmas Eve: Frantic but lovely; Charlie was able to leave the clinic in time to come to Mass with us. The kids did reasonably well and Lisbeth loved joining her fellow 1st graders in helping Father put Baby Jesus in the Nativity Scene. Wiglia small but nice as we began to explain some of those important childhood traditions which we hope will come to be important to the kids too.
2. Christmas morning: Big kids actually waited in their bedrooms till 7a; checked out stockings and then we woke Caitlin for present opening amongst the 5 of us ~ then loaded up the car and headed out for....
3. Christmas in VA, arriving after an amazing traffic-free, stop-free drive down in time to enjoy and wonderful dinner with my side of the family and more gift opening. On Friday we enjoyed some downtime to enjoy the new stuff. On Saturday the kids spent some time with their cousins and Bonne Mamy taking charge Charlie and I enjoyed an amazing day trip to Williamsburg. Really deserves a post of it's own with pictures but summary version: we had a great day to walk and explore not just the Colonial capital but the campus of William & Mary too. Stayed late enough to see some of the Grand Illumination and enjoy a wonderful dinner at the King's Arm. Truly a wonderful anniversary gift to each other!
4. On our actually anniversary we drove back to PA, and on Monday paused to do laundry, clean out the car a bit and sell our first house. I posted about it here when we moved this summer and of course the closing stirred up all the emotions a bit but only a bit as we were off on our next adventure...
5. Maine for New Years: After a longer, more traffic-full drive we made it to Maine and a wonderful New Years Eve/New Years Day filled with more presents and cousin time!!
6. Winter Sports featured on Friday with Lisbeth going skiing for the first time and Liam's inaugural ice skate. I too went skating which was a blast ~ something I used to really enjoy and haven't had the chance in years.
7. Re-entry has been a bit bumpy so I think we are all looking forward to a catch-up weekend but also think this Christmas Season will go down as exhausting but most excellent!!

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