And, just like that, Christmas has come and gone, but what a great Christmas it was!! This time of year is so full of family and fun that it's hard to not have a holiday hangover when it's all over. But, I ward that off by making sure we've got fun stuff planned for the months ahead and this year is no different. But, before I turn my sights on what's next, I want to sit in the glow of the holidays a little bit longer.
This year's Christmas saw the return of some traditions we missed out on last year (thanks COVID) - we had McGrath Christmas on Christmas Eve (thanks to Uncle Tim and Aunt Lynda who had rapid at home tests for anyone that wanted them). We staged ourselves in the garage at Tim and Lynda's new house (with a beer of course) while we waited the 15 minutes for the rapid results to come back. After 4 green lights we knew we were good to celebrate with the group (it made me feel better knowing that we'd just been together with such a large group for Ryan's party less than a week before).
Christmas Eve we had a nice full house! Erin, Dan, and my parents were all here with us this year and again, we went to bed that night with full hearts knowing we were surrounded by the people we love, and Santa wasn't too far away!
Sweet girls! They are always so good on Christmas morning. The rule is that they can't go downstairs without us, but that they can open their stockings while the rest of the adults get themselves up. Then, as soon as they set eyes on the presents I make them take a few pictures before we start opening and these are always some of my favorite photos of the year! I have years and years of pictures just like this one, in their grandma jammies (Hazels are somehow missing...I know it's around here somewhere), in front of the tree.
This year we even managed a group picture before the chaos began! I love these people so so much! Santa was very good to all of us this year, but the biggest hit of Christmas was the hamsters! Introducing Fern (Hazel's) and Olive (Abby, who originally named her Cookie but she had a name change a few days in). I didn't expect to enjoy these little rodents so much, but they both are really quite sweet. Poor Fern will be a WELL socialized hamster because Hazel loves that thing more than just about anyone else. I asked her last night "do you love me or Fern more?" and she answered "both". LOL! Sweet girl! I think that's a compliment to Fern :)
Since we did Ryan's party on the weekend that would traditionally have been Ritterbusch, we pushed our Christmas with my family back a few days and did it right after Christmas. Of course, in true McGrath fashion we also hauled the dump trailer out and cut a load of wood while we were there. But, more importantly, I made my first batch of dumplings! I've helped before, and watched plenty of times, but this year I made the dough start to finish - of course Mom still helped- - it took a LOT of rolling to get them to this stage. We made this batch using 9 eggs instead of the normal 7, meaning we almost ran out of counter space to roll the batch out!
Pencil Nose was a big hit and nearly distracted the kids from the BIG gift which was suitcases for each kid to pack when we go to DISNEY in February. All 10 of us, plus Erin and Dan (I think) will be down in Florida for a week in mid-Feb and I know I'm not the only one that is looking forward to having a warm vacation in just 6 weeks from now! We rarely do big trips in the winter, it tends to be the time of year that we hibernate at home and get lots of home projects done...but this year we're headed to Florida for sun and theme parks. I'm excited for the kids to have these memories with their cousins!
And, just like that, between Ryan's surprise party, Christmas and this big trip to Disney I feel like the cat is finally out of the bag on so many topics I've been keeping secret for months! It feels great to finally come clean on so many subjects. We still have a small NYE gathering here at the house tomorrow night (we're doing a fancy Supper Club themed dinner, complete with costumes), but we're closing out 2021 with a bang and looking forward to everything 2022 has in store for us.
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