X-mas and New Years...

In-laws, Sam and Carol, arrived on Dec. 21st. It'd been 1½ since I had last seen them. Stephen has been over both last December with Anton and then in the spring for his granddads funeral...
Anton got to go with S to pick them up at the airport and had "warmed" to them on the way back, for Erin it took a few days to stop pouting and start being her regular happy, smiley, imp-like self! ;)

We spent the night before Christmas Eve at my sisters so that we'd be able to get the whole x-mas experience from the get-go. Food prepping and turkey in the oven over night etc.
Christmas Eve rolled on quite quickly with more food prepping and dressing kiddies and parents and the arrival of Vaari (Finnish for granddad) & Anja and then watching the traditional "Kalle Anka" on the telly and finally Christmas dinner. We managed it well I thought! :) TONS of food and loads of people in S&B's not overly large kitchen.
Then getting the kids to tidy up the play-room "for Santa" (behind closed door) and *surprise!* that Santa (i.e. vaari!) would knock the door almost immediately when they were done! ;)
Granny and Granddad who normally don't get Santa visiting them got loads of photos taken of him and Granny even got to sit on Santa's knee. :D
No tears from kiddies this year either :) and Anton even got the other ones to sing "Blinka lilla stjärna" ("Twinkle twinkle little star") for Santa. :)

Loads of gifts were exchanged... Anton and Erin got toys and clothes and sweets and more toys... I got perfume (Hugo Boss - Deep Red) from S and kiddies. :D My sisters had gotten me a "ratt-muff" :) and paid for the, making up an explanation here, pre-driving school-training that the "pupil" (me) and "teacher" (Stephen) have to take before being allowed to practise... :/ Any hoot...greatly appreciated gift, totally time for me to get my license! Mum had gotten me a gift card for 7000:- (i.e. 10 driving lessons with instructor)!! *in tears by then* A HUGE gift!! I was left speechless...! :)

Back home again from sis's on Christmas Day and even more gifts waiting for us back here... :) Toys and books and more sweets. :)

Sam and Carol when back home again on the 28th and it was such a good visit, really hope it won't be another 1½ before our next "get-together" :)

Our munchkins went to nursery on Monday and Tuesday while I tried catching up on my English homework.
On Tuesday evening we took a drive to Trollhättan to celebrate my aunt M who turned 50! :) Nice to meet up with cousins and relatives one doesn't see very often. :)

We had no plans for New Years and were just going to chill at home but then invited Big sis and family to join us in our chilling, they came and we hung out and snacked and had our own little fireworks display about 8ish. Nice! :D
Our neighbours must have suffered a small mental breakdown since they spoiled out mood a little with a very peculiar fit of rage over a smouldering box left after the fireworks in our garden. It's not supposed to smoulder afterwards and the smoke caused by the box was totally unintentional but they didn't care about that...shouting and swearing at us (or Stephen, who kept remarkably cool)...VERY weird!
After the "fire" was put out we did our best to ignore the incident...think we did quite well. The Ben&Gerry's ice cream helped! :D A&E fell asleep about 10 and our guests started homeward just a little before midnight. :) The children didn't even stir for the approx. 20 minutes it took for all the fireworks to end and then S and I fell asleep too. :)

Best wishes to you all and hoping you have a wonderful 2009!