There were lots of kids for the girls to play with and old friends and new friends for Jeff and I to talk to, so it was a lot of fun. It was set up as a pot luck, so I thought I would bring my usual Christmas Eve chicken dish. We had a biscuit problem though. The commissary here is incredibly inconsistent, so Jeff came home with one container of regular size Pillsbury biscuits and three containers of mini biscuits. There were eight in the regular one, so that was not problem, but I needed twelve total. I've gotten creative before with Pillsbury crescent rolls, so I figured, I would just mush two small biscuits together to make one big biscuit. Well . . . it does not work the same way. The franken-biscuits came out looking like a botched biology experiment, and, to make matters worse, they pretty much sunk into the stew. I threw them out. Jeff said I should have taken a picture with them, but this is the only picture I have.
Lesson learned. We shall speak no more of the franken-biscuits. Luckily, when I put it out on the buffet table, it just looked like people had already started digging in. We stayed for a few hours. Elena got really into the karaoke machine. It had Frozen songs.
By the time we were heading home, it was getting dark, and the Christmas lights were coming on.
It was a really nice way to get ready for Christmas. The walking also helped wear the girls out, so they went to bed at a reasonable time and didn't bother us until about 6:30 the next morning. Jeff and I got our coffee, and then it was full Christmas mayhem.
Elena got lots of PJ Masks loot.
Her new favorite thing though is a stuffed flamingo.
Vivi got several new books,
and she saved the biggest present for last.
It was the Monster High High School she's been asking Santa for, for the past two years. He finally delivered.
The set up took a while, but the end result was quite impressive.
Elena also got a fun new train set, which her PJ Masks characters had to defend from bad guys. After fueling up on cinnamon rolls, the girls went back to the living room to happily play. It was perfect.
I got a huge and warm Harry Potter blanket for Christmas.
When the girls got tired of playing, they stole it to keep warm while watching Christmas movies.
I allowed it, because I was busy getting our traditional Christmas dinner of ham, scalloped potatoes and asparagus ready. I couldn't find pineapple slices, so we had to settle for crushed pineapple to top off our ham.
The week between Christmas and New Years was rough. I had a lot of momentum the first week of vacation, but by the second full week, I was flagging a little. One day, I took the girls out to lunch, just to get out of the house with minimal effort.
To their credit, most of the time they played nicely. Vivian even did some school work, and Elena practiced her letters.
Towards the end of the week, I shook myself out of my second week slump with a full beauty treatment of mani, pedi, and getting my hair done. Then Jeff took me out to our favorite French restaurant. It was exactly what I needed. That weekend was New Years. We decided to keep our tradition of celebrating at a civilized time of day instead of the middle of the night. First we went out to brunch at Club Colombia with friends. The brunch is quite famous, but it was all Colombian food, so the kids had a bit of trouble finding things they liked. Vivian found some good sausages and strawberries. Elena ate a bit of arepa, but mostly filled up on mango juice.
Towards the end of the meal, we discovered their hot chocolate, yum!
After brunch, we all went back to our place and watched the Sydney fireworks with our party hats on. Everyone had fun, and no one was grouchy because they didn't get enough sleep. Happy New Year!
