a new year

I know. Isn't that a riveting blog title?

I'm tired and a bit hungry and more than a bit frustrated with Royal Bank Insurance and have just spent 2 1/2 hours fighting with Liam trying to get him to write more than one sentence... I should probably be having a cup of tea AND A NAP and not blogging.

But...

It's already Jan 5th and I still haven't posted anything about Christmas (or Halloween for that matter). And so I will blog. If only to keep myself from yelling or crying any more this afternoon (I'll now be expecting a worried email/Skype message from my mom later tonight).

And I'll eat a date square.

Or maybe two.

Even though I don't like date squares.

Maybe the sugar will help...

And with that... bring on the Christmas cheer!! *said with a smirk*

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I haven't talked at all yet about Colombians and Christmas.

How the Christmas decorations go up as soon as the Halloween decorations come down. How the already unbelievable amount of not so much "street vendors", so much as right-in-the-middle-of-the-crazy-traffic vendors seems to quadruple. How Colombians seem to make up for the lack of snow and other natural signs of Christmas with a completely over the top and downright UN-natural amount of Christmas lights. How thousands of people fill the squares and markets and parks each night to admire said Christmas lights while drinking tea and eating grilled meat on a stick... and cotton candy.

The week before Christmas, one of the couples at the embassy arranged for a tour of the Christmas lights. About thirty of us piled into two large vans and hit up four of the best lit parks and squares. It -of course- rained most the night, but it didn't stop tens of thousands of people from filling all the walks and paths through the maze of lights.



Liam was less than impressed at being forced to walk WITH HIS FAMILY (horrors!) instead of with one of the older embassy boys WHO HAS BIONICLES FROM 2001. His face in this next picture says it all.

The tree on the left is the massive one in the middle of Simon Bolivar square. The one on the right is our humble ode to Christmas.

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all tuckered out Christmas Eve waiting for supper to be ready

The picture that would have graced our 2010 Christmas card... had we made 2010 Christmas cards. This was taken Christmas Eve. Aren't we a lovely bunch?? But who's that cute, normal looking kid in the middle?



Cuddled together after our traditional supper of corn chowder. It was good, but not quite as good as my dad's always was. Later that night it hit me that it'd been three years since I last tasted my dad's Christmas Eve corn chowder...

Andrew and Simon are saying, "Ho! Ho! Ho!"

Then we had The Opening of the Traditional Christmas Eve Gift. Always pyjamas. Never a toy. Get used to it boys.

the boys were laughing at Peter who was pretending to pull my pants down

a couple shots to show grandma that there's LOTS of growing room in this year's pjs

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Christmas morning started bright and early at 6:30am, the time I woke up to be sick get the cinnamon buns ready so they could rise while we opened stockings. It was my first ever attempt at cinnamon buns and we all agreed there were a resounding success.

I didn't managed to make stockings for Simon and Andrew yet, so they used Peter and mine. They didn't  seem to notice or care.

After stockings and breakfast, we piled onto the couch to listen to Peter read the Christmas Story. Don't the boys look riveted? Ha. Not even my wildly striped zebra pjs could hold their attention.







Andrew spent a good twenty minutes playing with our Flip video camera, watching himself saying "Ho! Ho! Ho!" over and over. And over. If I ever get around to it (which isn't likely), I'll upload the video itself to share. It's pretty cute.

a rare picture of Peter... not sticking his tongue out or making a rude gesture... AND smiling

The rest of these are just some more shots from our day. Likely only of interest to our family, but feel free to scroll through. The boys had a great time opening gifts together and taking a break between each one to actually open and play with each gift. It wasn't rushed. There was no timeline, no agenda. It was nice.

This was our very first Christmas alone as a family. Every other year since Peter and I got married we've been with either my side of the family or his. It was definitely a bit strange. Not necessarily in a bad way, just different. We did get many chances to talk to all of our family on Skype throughout the day, but that's just not the same. I definitely felt far away.

At the same time, it was nice to be just us. It was less hectic, less loud, less rushed (maybe a bit less fun). Peter and I had the chance to just sit back and watch the boys as they opened each gift. Andrew was totally into it this year and loved every minute. Simon exclaimed just as loudly over Lego as he did over clothes. And Liam was bouncing with energy and anticipation all day (could've been the sugar in the cinnamon buns).

There's nothing quite like the excitement of a child on Christmas day, is there?

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I hope all of your holidays were full of love and light and family and fun. Blessings to you all in the coming year.

Love,
Peter, Amy, Liam, Simon, Andrew (and the 2011 version, coming soon)