My Family's Ridiculous(ly Awesome) Christmas.

The day before Christmas Eve The Canadian and I began our journey down to Atlanta to spend Christmas with my family. Flying out of Canada is crazy expensive so we drove through snow, on icy roads, for five hours down to Bangor, Maine. This was our second year making this trek and we repeated our date night in Maine again this year by going to dinner and a movie before spending the night in a cheap motel and then flying out the next morning. 

We arrived in Atlanta the afternoon of Christmas Eve. After quickly wrapping presents (because I order them all online and ship them to my parent's house) we headed to church and then a Christmas Eve party. Carrying on our new tradition from last year, TC, my sister and I headed out to our local hole-in-the-wall bar for some cocktails after the evening's party. We stayed out a little later than planned but managed to not catch Santa filling our stockings when we got home.

Needless to say, the days of waking up at the crack of dawn are over and we slept in a bit before rolling out of bed and heading downstairs on Christmas morning. Fortunately, my mom has decided to start a fun new Christmas morning tradition of mimosas while opening presents. Personally, I think it's a stroke of genius.

To counter the mimosas and give us some sustenance for the present-opening marathon we dined on my mom's famous pecan cinnamon rolls and sausage egg casserole. 

With food and drink in our hands, we got down to business and started opening presents.

The Funniest Present Award definitely goes to my sister for gifting TC with an amazing new winter hat. The beard is impressive but the moustache is what really puts it over the top, don't you think?

To add to his glory, Santa hooked him up with some sweet glasses adorned with LED lights for working on his truck. Or reading in bed. They're multipurpose like that.

Everyone got some really fun and amazing gifts. As evidence, I decided to wear as many of them as possible just to make sure everything fit. Awesome scarves, an ear warmer, a fun apron, new cozy slippers...they all fit perfectly.

To end the morning, Santa saved some special presents for last.

It's like an iPhone, but bigger! Hello?? Anyone there?

In the past five years my family has gone from spending Christmas with my grandparents to vacationing in NYC and Breckenridge to spending Christmas at home again with the addition of The Canadian. Every Christmas has been wonderful but I think this may have been the best one ever. 

The day passed by with little conversation thanks to our new iPads. This is The Canadian's first Mac product and I think it is safe to say that he is completely addicted.

Later in the day we moved on to delicious pomegranate martinis while dinner was prepared.

Yup, I think my mom was enjoying hers. She definitely deserved it after pulling off the greatest Christmas morning of all time.

Now that I'm a full fledged domestic rockstar I was even allowed to help with preparation and cut up the broccoli. Of course I wore my sweet new Christmas apron. It was the key to my floret success.

For the special occasion we dug out the good china and crystal. To be extra festive my mom added crackers (full of odd toys and paper crowns...see below) and mini stockings to hold the silverware.

Finally dinner was served when my dad carved up the standing rib roast.

I'm telling you, these iPads are trouble. Somehow they invaded our fancy dinner table towards the end of the meal. Don't you think this should be our Christmas card picture? The perfect way to end the evening.

  

Note to self: Never hand your father the camera after a big glass of wine and expect him to yell something remotely appropriate when attempting to get everyone to smile...

Instead you'll end up with a picture like this.

Thanks Mom and Dad for a great Christmas!