Christmas morning!!!! What a wonderful day, yet I was still feeling quite poorly and Kevin started picking up some of my symptoms, so we could have been a little better off. But all was good because Santa came bearing lovely gifts for two lovely little children who for the most part were very good little boys and girls.
Addison's big gift this year was a brand new bicycle with stablizers. Now she had asked Santa for a pink pony and as soon as she walked in the living room she about broke out in tears to see that it wasn't there. We explained to her that we visited with Santa and asked him to bring her a new bicycle since that would have been a lot easier for us to bring back to American than a pony. She still didn't like that but after awhile I think she started to like it.
Addie also got 4 pairs of Disney princess shoes which she proudly modeled for us.
Santa brought a video of our favorite book - The Gruffalo by Juila Donaldson.
Harrison's big gifts were a Buzz Lightyear action figure (who talks and moves his head and everything) along with a Duplo Lego Rock Quarry site.
To make this yet a very English Christmas morning, I mustered up enough energy to make my very first batch of scones. I had gotten a recipe from a friend and knew we had to have something special for breakfast. They are wonderfully dense biscuits and true to tradition we topped them with Cornish Clotted Cream (will give you an instant heart attack it's so rich) and then topped with strawberry jam!!! Ohhhhh soooo good!
Mommy and Daddy got to open some gifts after awhile. The kids got me a new digital thermometer since my other manual one failed me twice horribly. I also got a new dress from Monsoon, a Scottish slate cheese board with fancy little cutting knives and most special to me was a framed set of pictures of scenes around Stamford in the winter time. It instantly brought me to tears as in a few short months, this wonderful place that I am living in will all become just memories and pictures on the wall to remind of them.
Trying to be very thoughtful, I found some very special whiskey drinking glasses for Kevin as sharing a his Glenlivet Scottish bottle with friends has been fun. Unfortunately I didn't realize that they were really meant for more connoisseur in whiskey tastings...I thought they looked cute and ordered the all the way from Scotland and they just barely made it for Christmas with the weather. Other than that I got him "The Hangover" and "Just Dance 2" for the Wii (more for me but I thought I could get him to do it with me.)
Finally the kids dug into their stockings filled with little pressies and sweet treats. We so love these special stockings that Grandma Sally homemade for the kids.
Last year we forgot to break open our Christmas crackers so I wanted to make sure we used them this year. Christmas crackers are totally British. They are like little tubes filled with trinkets and a paper crown that you usually wear all during Christmas dinner. I would have brought home loads to the US but they are considered explosives so they aren't allowed on planes.
The kids enjoy their hats for about 2 minutes and want to go back to playing. But we needed to get dressed and moving around as we were graciously invited over to the Beales' for a few Christmas nibbles. With the weather being so bad, Debbie's parents weren't able to make it up for their planned Christmas celebration and us not feeling well with my flu bug, we all so appreciated having the other to bring up their holiday spirits. It wasn't the Christmas we planned but it was lovely and better than we could have ever hoped.
This lovely family has made us feel at home and taken us in as part of their family and them all into our family. Not only are we neighbors but the best of friends through out all the ages.
We had quite a spread of goodies to nibble on and enjoy together. I felt so bad that we didn't bring anything over to contribute as I just couldn't prepare much, but they were so wonderful to us.
We shared some gifts with each other. We got them the Apples to Apples game that we all have enjoyed playing together so much over the past year.
Addison got the "Tummy Ache" game which her and Gems got right into playing.
And of course, Harrison got a little "Bobby's" outfit - British policeman!!!
We did have such a wonderful time with them, but we had to make our way home to call family back in the States and get dinner started. It took every last ounce of energy for us to visit with both sides of the family but it was nice to see them all. The kids got to open their gifts in front of Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Ryan and Aunt Lindsay via Skype so that was a treat. I felt awful that I wasn't able to get all our Christmas gifts lined up for everyone back home with the "sickness" sucking up that week and everything else that kept me busy before that.
Well, we attempted to prepare a nice Christmas dinner but then Kevin fell ill and had to lay down and I worked on finishing dinner for a very hungry family since we didn't eat a proper lunch while not feeling well. We did have a lovely Christmas as we made to best of it as we could but by the end of the day we were all tired and sick and just ready to dream of little sugar plums dancing in our heads.
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