We had a lovely couple of days here for Christmas Eve and Day. But first, I wanted to share a funny series of beard photos that John and I saw at the Chicago Athletic Association when we were downtown at the Art Institute.

OK, so back to this post, Liam and Kat were hosting her family on Xmas Day, so we opened some presents here on Xmas Eve. Nana and Grandpa set up a series of gifts on a theme by giving them this cheese board.

With some cheese that their local elf helped purchase

Then I added in some crackers and candied pecans and they were ready for a cheese party! Miles has been keeping up with his reading over the break and is currently reading Joan Didion’s Slouching Toward Bethlehem. We got him an annotated copy of Dubliners, which we think he’ll enjoy! Who can resist the ending of The Dead? Goosebumps!

Nana and Grandpa also sent Miles some socks, changing for the better his whole laundry cycle.

Our friend Beth gave John and me a Nancy Pelosi coaster 🙂

Christmas morning we opened a few more, including neck pillows from Nana and Grandpa


Irish treats from Phyllis for John’s Kris Kringle

And two books from Barry to me for my Kris Kringle. Thanks! I started the Chicago Neighborhood Guide yesterday and it’s really good –Â sure to provide some jumping off points for my Chicago History Book Club, which I’m always looking out for titles for!

And thanks for the gifts too that I didn’t get a photo of! Cards were opened and much appreciated, and texts are being sent! We decided to fit in the just released movie Little Women at a noon showing. On our way (while picking up coffee for the recently awakened…) we saw this cycling Santa.

Little Women was really amazing, we highly recommend it! Academy – I hope you are listening. If Greta Gerwig isn’t nominated for Best Director, well…
After the movie we went over to Debbie, Jeff and Maddie’s house for Xmas Dinner. We had a lovely salmon dinner that Jeff made

And played some new games, including Exploding Kittens. Like with Uno on Thanksgiving, John and Maddie formed an alliance and tried to take down the rest of us. Also like with Uno, there’s only so much an alliance can do in a game that has a lot of random elements, and we all won and lost some 🙂

Maddie’s new Barbie and Robot joined their team at one point, making them quite a force!


Thanks for having us over, Debbie, Jeff and Maddie! And Merry Christmas, everyone!
Christmas Eve and Christmas with family fun! Lots of goodies!
Looks like lots of fun. I just gave a Throw the Burrito game to friends’ kids for Xmas… it’s by the same people as Exploding Kittens
Glad you’re enjoying the books Cindy, you may have heard we played a bit of Spyfall in Portmarnock on Christmas night, it turns out Isabelle is prime spy material!