Holly Jolly Christmas

Hi Guys,

So, what a Christmas. It didn't go as planned, but it turned out just fine. The Konig family stayed home this year. No travelling, (thank goodness...did you guys see the airport lineups and those poor people stranded in bus depots for days?) And only my youngest brother and his girlfriend were over for Christmas dinner. It was relaxing, stress free, quiet, and quite enjoyable. The only glitch came on Christmas eve day. We had a power failure for 4 hours. But even that wasn't too bad. Luckily, I had started cooking at noon that day and by the time the power went out, my food was pretty much done.

Here is how our Christmas went.

We had a lot of snow for Vancouver. People were saying that it was the most snow since, like 1968 or something crazy like that. All I know is that I was pretty excited about it. I like snow, and as long as I don't have to shovel too much of it, I don't mind if it snows and snows and snows. The kids and our dog, Tuck, had a blast. Their friends from next door decided to not use their driveway and they built a "snow-wall" at the bottom of their driveway so the kids spent hours upon hours sliding down that hill and building forts, having snowball fights and creating snowmen. Here is what our front yard looked like on Christmas eve day.


It snowed most of the day. We cleaned off that little orange car twice that day and shovelled at least 4 times.

Darren and Auria were planning to come in on Christmas day for Frank's famous Christmas breakfast brunch, but after looking at the weather report they asked if Frank could come out in our SUV and pick them up a day earlier.

I was planning on making a lamb roast or our little family that night, but added a pork roast to the slow cooker so we would have more food. And because Auria doesn't eat red meat, she started a whole chicken at her place to bring in and finish cooking at our place. The roasts went in a noon and I started the potatoes soon after. I was going for a Greek theme. The lamb, the lemon roasted potatoes and a Greek salad. Just after Frank left to pick up the family, the lights went out. We were out of power from 4:30 to 8:30 that night. But it was ok, because my meat was cooked enough and the potatoes were done and we only had the salad to make. We finished cooking Auria's chicken on the BBQ and everything was delicious. We also invited the neighbours over as their original plan of going to relatives for dinner was canceled due to the weather and they hadn't started cooking before the power went. So, this is us eating our delicious meal by candlelight.


When the lights came on at 8:30 pm we rushed around shutting off all the lights and continued our meal by candlelight. We all agreed that this was better.

The evening ended with some movies, some yummy Christmas chocolates and "special" eggnog. We readied everything for Santa's visit that night and went to sleep.

In the morning, the kids were so excited to see the presents and stockings.


Santa was good to us this year!


Those stockings were certainly stuffed with some choice gifts.


And here it is...that look that we as parents are all looking for:


A little girl and her brand new barbie doll. Could anything be better?

As soon as all the presents were opened and the wrapping paper was taken care of, Frank went into overdrive. He had his famous Christmas breakfast buffet to prepare. The menu included Eggs Benedict (Frank even made Hollandaise sauce from scratch, for the first time ever, 4 times! The eggs curdled and we ran out of butter and it still tasted wonderful), homemade crepes with berries and whipped cream, European cheeses, sausages, cakes, and cookies, buns, coffee, and champagne mimosas. Yummy!!! We had so much food that we had to invite our friends over to help us eat it all.


After we ate ourselves into a coma, people drifted away to do their own things. Naps were high on that priority list. Finally, around 2pm, Auria and I shook off our food induced high and started making more food. The turkey was stuffed and placed in the oven and the vegetables were prepared. By 8:00 the night, a not so hungry crowd (Frank's famous Christmas breakfast buffet [I'm gonna trademark that saying] gets left out all day and nibbled on) sat down at our groaning table and began to tuck into yet more food. I forgot to take any pictures through my "mashed potatoes and turkey with gravy" haze.

All in all, it was a lovely day. One that we will be recovering from for the next week I'm sure.

Merry Christmas everyone.