Christmas 2011

 Mary won the poetry recitation contest at school and was awarded a medal at the Christmas concert where she also recited her winning poem again.

As a Christmas gag-gift Jay's staff at work gave him these funny dolls that are supposed to look like him.  They are pretty goofy.

My sister made us this amazing quilt from our old T-shirts.  It's super cozy and big so we can share... it's everyone's new favorite blanket to snuggle on the couch with.  It's also fun to look at the quilt pieces and remember the T-shirts that have meaning for us.

 Celebrating Christmas with Jay's family

 To honor our heritage we celebrated Danish Christmas traditions with my family this year on Christmas Eve, including....

 lighting candles on the tree and passing plates of cookies...

 ... while Mary and her cousin represented St. Lucia....

 ... along with many traditional foods like red cabbage, rice pudding, and danish cookies.  And we all gathered around the tree and sang.

Mary was delighted to received the "thing she wanted most in the whole world" on Christmas morning.... Hermione's "Time Turner" necklace replica from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  She loves it! 

The boys also enjoyed their gifts, though we were so distracted we forgot to take any photos.  The highlight though was the family gift... we finally broke down and got them a Wii game system.  They were pretty shocked... it was kind of funny to watch their faces.  Why didn't I take a photo?  Oh well. 

Then we went to the cabin and spent some fun time in the snow.  The weather was gorgeous so the kids spent most of the daylights hours outside... it was sunny and warm but there was tons of snow.

Mary wanted to make a "Snow Girl" (notice she is wearing a "dress") so Jay gave her a hand and sculpted quite the face for it.

While they were doing that Jack went off and made his own "snow boy" and included "hair" to make his unique. 

 I thought it was pretty clever.

It's been a great year and we are looking forward to another one in 2012!