Christmas Day

Ewan's first Christmas Day. Oh my gosh what excitement! Presents, presents, presents, presents, presents, presents, presents! What a lucky boy! Thank you to everyone who sent him such wonderful gifts. He had such a good time openening them all and it was a very special time for Mum and Dad and everyone else watching him, even if he had no idea what was the reason for all the fuss and attention. As you can see the theme of eating the wrapping continued from last Tuesday too.







Present opening was followed by a hearty breakfast of freshly baked cranberry and date scones with fresh pineapple and scrambled eggs. This fueled everyone up for preparing the Xmas dinner, with some pauses for naps and for studying/playing with gifts. In the afternoon, Grandma Kristi also found a bottle of Champagne that was left over from Fraser & Jen's wedding in June '04. Below you can see Martha and Great Grandma Fran enjoying a sip. Christmas dinner was a fine meal and we combined a mixtue of US, English and Swedish traditions. As an appetizer, Kristina prepared Swedish meatballs for us all that we ate with lingonberry preserve. These were delicious and we also had shrimp and cocktail sauce and cheese selection to warm us up for the main event. For the main course there was the traditional Turkey and sides washed down with wine from Santa Barabara County that Jen and Fraser brought along with them. Everyone did a little something towards dinner, including Rob's "Gourmet" cream corn; seasoned with a secret extra ingredient from the spice rack. We later found out that it was more onion powder in addition to the fresh onions already in his recipie. Simple yet effective. Watch out Gordon Ramsey. We also introduced the British Christmas Crackers to the table which supplied the paper party hats we were all wearing and some very droll jokes to tell over dinner.