
1. Mt. Vernon by Candlelight with Elizaben

- The decorations
- Watching my Hobbit sister doing festive little jigs in the visitor center
- Drinking cider and laughing around the bonfires with complete strangers, booing when other groups were called to go on the tour

- Cracking inappropriate jokes during the tour
- Watching the real, live blacksmith

- Volunteering to learn a period dance in a group demonstration.
- A Christmas tree that decorated with books, scrolls, quill pens, and ink jars. I will be stealing this idea one day.



2. 2009 Office Angel Tree

- Spending two hours in Target searching through their meager toy offerings for little boys
- Playing with my favorite toy in the whole world

- Having a panic attack
- Calling my mom who tried to talk me down
- Cell phone dying in the middle of the intervention
- Having an epiphany and getting a scooter from the bike aisle
- Finding the space shuttle
- Throwing in the remote control car, and spending every penny of my $150 allotment

- Our conference room filled with toys on collection day
3. White House Christmas Tree With Elizaben

- Walking three blocks to find a place to cross the snowbanks when they came to pick me up
- The ugliest White House Tree we've ever seen
- Inside paths around the tree closed due to a light dusting of snow


- Yelling (sotto voce) at the White House for Malia to come out and shovel the walks
- Face planting on 14th Street -- no struggling or flailing involved, just one, big, beautiful and fluid transition from walking upright to laying spread eagle, face down on the sidewalk
- Random trip to Chinatown afterward so Squints could get a salad...

4. Secret Santa Exchanges

- Giving both people Snuggies.
5. Christmas Eve at National Cathedral with Elizaben (See the program here.)
- Driving through parts of town that I never get to
- Seeing familiar landmarks from different angles...

- This Christmas tree somewhere on the way to the Cathedral...

- Driving through Georgetown and seeing all the rich people walk to Christmas parties in their furs and pearls
- Christmas trees in rowhouse windows

- More inappropriate jokes (is nothing sacred?)
- Working through the recitations and watching the rites
- Hearing Latin again (the language of heaven)
- Being in a massive church with little nooks and crannies...

- Watching the high-flying ribbon thing during The Entrance Rite...

- All the sitting and standing
- This part of the program...
"Presider: The peace of the Lord be always with you.
People: And also with you.
The people greet one another with a sign of God’s peace and then are seated."
People: And also with you.
The people greet one another with a sign of God’s peace and then are seated."
- Everyone hugging those they came with and shaking hands and wishing Merry Christmas to strangers

- Messing with my camera on the way home to take funky pictures of lights
5. Christmas Eve
- Packing clothes and gifts and enough stuff to keep me busy at Elizaben's...

- Our Cratchet Family Christmas Eve Dinner...Heaven help us...
- Christmas Crackers!

- Playing with the toys inside

- Wearing crowns

- The Christmas goose that I couldn't eat because I thought it looked the way that cooked cat meat would

- All of us deciding that a Cratchet Family Christmas Dinner wouldn't be happening again

- Finding out that roasted chestnuts are nasty and taste like turkey
- Mastering my poor man's bokeh technique to get the Christmas tree pictures that I've always wanted

- Watching A Muppet Christmas Carol and actually enjoying it
6. My Third and Final Elizaben Family Christmas
- Gentle Ben's famous stockings in a sock
- The Huntington Beach ornament from mom

- The matching aprons mom made for each sister, and for Molly and Sophie!

- Faerie Tale Theatre from Elizaben
- Another Christmas Bible dinner

- Setting up camp in 'my chair'

6. My Third and Final Elizaben Family Christmas
- Gentle Ben's famous stockings in a sock




- Faerie Tale Theatre from Elizaben
- Another Christmas Bible dinner

- Setting up camp in 'my chair'

5 comments:
This was an excellent way to cover Christmas!
You cracked me up many times in this post..."{ What's up with the red stars, Comrade?}" "- The ugliest White House Tree we've ever seen" "Yelling (sotto voce) at the White House for Malia to come out and shovel the walks" "- Giving both people Snuggies." "- More inappropriate jokes (is nothing sacred?)"
"- The Christmas goose that I couldn't eat because I thought it looked the way that cooked cat meat would" (you are so right about that! "- Face planting on 14th Street -- no struggling or flailing involved, just one, big, beautiful and fluid transition from walking upright to laying spread eagle, face down on the sidewalk"
Apparently I loved the whole post and laughed right through it.
Whitney desperately wants that dinosaur spike and all the other huge, ugly animals that go with that set.
I love Christmas crackers! We had them this year and they are so fun. Christmas dinner seems so much more festive with a paper hat.
Christmas was a many splendered thing. I laughed so hard and want to know the inappropriate comments.
I learned something-face planting.I was confused at first but after reading it a few times I find it so rightly named. My only question is where were you when Elizaben were pointing/
Well, that WAS a mega-post!!
I think the book-themed tree is brilliant!
ANd -- we opened your gift today and COULD NOT love it more!!! Thank you!!!
wonderful elizaben christmas memories for all three of you!
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