Rock To Wind A String Around

Nothing caps a festive holiday like a terribly long road triip.  Christmas was divine–the kids loved their gifts, Astrid Meklit is now aces when it comes to opening presents–she managed to open all of hers and help the rest of us too (such a multi-tasker).  The weather was cooperative–it was chilly but dry enough to allow Elliott a chance to try out his new ripstik.  By the time our friends joined us for dinner, he had more or less figured out how to use it successfully, so we all were treated to multiple demonstrations of his mad ripstik skilz.  We had a lovely dinner–onion pudding followed by root vegetable gratin, spicy-sweet roasted cauliflower, broccoli with garlic, and some beautiful  dinner rolls that Elliott made (there was also a ham with red current glaze, but I’m not including it because I didn’t eat it).  We cleaned up, digested, and made room for dessert (gingerbread with spiced peaches and vanilla sauce).  Our friends left and then we flew into TRIP-PREPAREDNESS MODE!

After last year’s big cross-country move two days after Christmas, I was pretty sure I’d never leave home again during the week between Christmas and New Year.   Hmmm, I guess the pain of packing and traveling fades as quickly as labor  pains do.  With all of the EOR stuff on my plate in this last week, I didn’t really do much to prep for our two week trip south and wow.  All I can say is, “wow.”  There was a lot to  do in such a short span of time.  We  ended our Christmas celebration with a marathon laundry session and ended Boxing Day with a marathon wrapping session.  We’re giving everyone on the gift list family pictures this year, and while they were guaranteed to arrive by Christmas, they still hadn’t arrived by the end of the mail day yesterday, so we wrapped a ton of empty picture frames and wrote charming gift tags about giving half-presents.

We spent today in the car and will be in Atlanta until Monday, giving our relatives the joy of Astrid Meklit for Christmas.  We adore this aunt and set of cousins, and NEVER see them as often as we like, so we’re thrilled to be here.  After, we’ll zip to Florida for another week and a half of sunshiny goodness–Albert’s family is in St Augustine, so we’ll head there first to dip our toes in the Atlantic, but we’ll start 2009 with our toes in the Gulf of Mexico–much happiness abounds!

Happy last Sunday of 2008!  Do something fun with it!