Christmas

Before Christmas, John realized he had a few unused vacation days. He spent one of those days in our kitchen with Mary making Christmas (and Green Bay Packers) cookies. The two of them made a whole lot of cookies that got us through the entire week.

Neat, tidy, and efficient. I went out for a workout and when I got back I was greeted with these cookies and a clean kitchen.

Christmas Eve is Troy's birthday (and this year it was also the first night of Hanukkah). After the Packers won their game that afternoon (specially for her birthday, I'm sure) we had what has, in Troy's honor, become our annual feast of appetizers followed by cheesecake. Their friends Judah and Arhanti joined us for a night of too much food and a lot of fun.

On Christmas morning we slept in and had a relaxing morning opening gifts. Mary got a cute purse.

I got my very own Alexander Hamilton bobblehead doll.

Mary got a quilt to match her new purse, made with love.

Brad got a new job at In n Out. Just kidding —he got some much appreciated gift cards and a paper hat.

Troy got a cute vest and . . . . .

. . . . . a new running hoodie (which she wisely put to use after we opened gifts).

John got a salt cooking block and a book to go with it.

And the dogs weren't left out. Allie got two rope toys and Sirius got a bottle of beer which, not surprisingly, he loves.

The highlight of the morning was talking to Peter and Jessa, who were in Paris for Christmas. (Prior to that they were in Amsterdam, now they're in Berlin, and they'll be in Amsterdam again for New Year's before heading back to Casablanca.) This year this is the closest we'd get to a family photo that included everybody.

And this was our local group, happy to be together for our fifth (and, sadly, our  final) Christmas in St. Louis.