On Christmas morning, Liam came back over around 10am and we opened presents. Somehow the only photo taken was this of me wearing my new dry robe – a robe with a fluffy towel like inside for warming up after a cold water dip. Also included in the gift bag were 2 tickets for John and I to do the polar bear plunge in late January at the lakefront! He has a dry robe too. Wish us luck!
Other notable pressies were a toaster for Liam, a book of short stories for Miles, t-shirts from Canada for both of them, and the board game WingSpan for John. Also Miles got us some really great books from a book festival in Portland that he worked at earlier this year. Thanks everyone!
We then had some baked eggs, drank some flower tea that Bronwyn’s family gave us as a super nice gift (photo was included in the last post!), skyped with the Kennys and Frankie and Barry in Dublin, then headed out to Naperville. We went to Tabor Hills first for a gift exchange with Nana (thanks Nana for all the lovely gifts including the tea, cookies and delightful snacks!) then over to Debbie, Jeff and Maddie’s. The cats Stewie and Layla really liked John’s shoes and are very funny when they decide to do things at the same time (like run across the room). Jeff outdid himself and made a really amazing mushroom Wellington! The bottom row of photos below include two group shots before we started eating, and in the center, Liam and John working on a very hard math problem that Maddie’s 5th grade class was given before the break and has really stumped even those adults who are confident in their math abilities. Liam solved it! (As far as we know! There was some ambiguity about the teacher definitively saying what the answer was.)
After dinner, some friends of theirs came over and we had a lovely time chatting with them and then diving into some really delicious desserts, including pumpkin pie, the yule log, chocolate covered strawberries and cookies. In case blog readers haven’t met Jackie, Jeff’s mom, that’s her in the front to the right of Nana/Mary. Maddie isn’t in the picture because the friends brought their kids and all the kids were playing nintendo switch in the other room.
Great Christmas everyone, it was a delight to spend it with you!!!
That was such a lovely Christmas dinner! Exotic mushroom Wellington and Yule log and traditional favorites as well!
We should make a math problem an annual tradition!
Looks like a lovely get together and yummy food too . Happy New Year to all.