Christmas Vacation 2012

January 02, 2013

"The Real Santa" by the National Christmas Tree

It is safe to say that Anna had a GREAT Christmas vacation. Between parties, ice skating, Santa Claus and a visit to Massachusetts just in time for the first snow, it was non-stop entertainment.

Anna kicked off her break with her friend Molly's birthday party on December 22, complete with a visit from Santa. Anna decided that each state has its own Santa Claus in addition to the real Santa. She concluded that the Santa that visited Molly's house was the Virginia Santa. This was definitely the largest Santa ever - he was easily 6'4" and very big. Anna was so surprised to see him, that she forgot to tell him what she wanted for Christmas!

Dad & Anna at the National Tree

That was taken care of the next day with a visit to the real Santa at the national Christmas tree. Anna told him she wanted a Monstaz and that was it. After enjoying the tree and some holiday dancers, we headed over to the new outdoor ice rink at Georgetown for some skating. Anna has improved dramatically and will be taking skating lessons this winter. Unfortunately, she did not have the right socks on and left the rink after 1 1/2 hours of skating with some nice blisters on her ankles.

Anna forgot all about her blisters on Christmas Eve as she prepared for Santa's arrival after attending Christmas Eve mass. Dad made a delicious seafood dinner and Anna set out cookies and a note for Santa along with some reindeer food in the front yard. She was quite concerned about the piece of Santa's suit that was ripped off last year following Santa's crash through the fireplace screen when coming down the chimney. This year, Anna made sure Dad moved the screen so there would not be any problems.

Christmas morning Anna awoke to find her stocking full and some presents from Santa. As always, Santa's presents paled in comparison to what she received from Grandma, Grandpa, and her Aunts and Uncles. Dad was quite excited about his new saw and his new dutch oven. Mom was thrilled that she did not get a steamer or any other domestic tool this year (sometimes you just need some jewelry). Anna spent the entire day playing with her toy horse (Grandma/Grandpa), building a tack house for the horse (lincoln logs from Aunt Mary), and putting together legos (Aunt Loren, Uncle Rod/Tim). She ran out of time for her gifts (bead necklaces, books, games) and didn't get a chance to play with them until later during the break.

December 26, we hit the road for Western Massachusetts at 6 AM to beat the approaching snowstorm to Aunt Lucy's house. We made it 2 hours before the foot of snow arrived. Aunt Lucy's house was a great winter resort. To say Anna had an awesome time would be an understatement. She built a snowman. Her cousins Luke and Andrew built a snow fort for her and took her sledding (her favorite part was the night sledding in which Luke set up some spotlights for them to go down the hill). She went ice skating with Andrew. She learned to ski at the mountain where Luke was a ski instructor. She was reluctant to try skiing after falling over (tears...."I don't want to ski," etc...), when Terri happened by and got her going. Luke also gave her some lessons and the next thing you know she is skiing. She must have went down the bunny hill 100 times!

Joe got some skiing in as well. The first day after the snow, he joined Luke and his friends where he quickly realized that skiing down the advanced slopes with a bunch of 17-year old expert skiers may not be the best idea (he made it). The second day of skiing he followed Luke off the course a little too closely and ended up jumping a creek (yup....he's still got it)! Fortunately, everyone involved made it home to tell about it.

One of the side benefits with staying with Aunt Lucy is all of the fresh, organic food. Anna even got to go to the chicken coop and pick her own eggs for breakfast! Aunt Lucy was going to make granola, but ran out of time this trip. We enjoyed the great food, but have now returned to getting our eggs from the dairy case.

Aunt Loren and cousin James joined the Aunt Lucy resort on Thursday. Aunt Mary surprised everyone and came up on Friday. A great time was had by all. A big thanks to Aunt Lucy and family for hosting us (and feeding us lots of organic food).

Saturday morning we headed to New York ahead of yet another snowstorm, where Uncle John, Aunt Yvonne and Deborah hosted us for the night. We enjoyed another great meal and a competitive game of Monopoly where Uncle John demonstrated his ability to put together a ponzi scheme and Joe made real estate investments like Donald Trump. We returned to Virginia on Sunday, but not before stopping to pick up some New York bagels and Italian cookies.