Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Making Merry

I am happy to report that we here On Bradstreet have been having a glorious holiday and vacation from our usual routines, (and Alex has another three days of vacation left!). Though I never did get Yule cards out this year, nor did we make bon-bons, and there is an endless amount of things I could have sewed or made or baked, I'm feeling content overall with our season of celebrating. And just to prove that I'm really not back to routine, I'm not going to write a lengthy description about our days, but I will leave you with some pictures. We hope you are yours are well and happy the rest of this year and the next!

We made Solstice lemon drop cookies, decorated to look like the Sun, for a cookie swap party at the home of some good friends.



Yule shopping in The Old Port.





Some final long hours in the studio, and breakfast brought to me by my love.





A Solstice snowstorm dropped two feet of snow on us.





A new tradition was started when Olivia and Adam decided to make a last-minute gingerbread house, this one from a kit. They have vowed that next year they will make an entire house from scratch.





Yule morning, and the kids brought each of our stockings to our room where we let the giggles and oohs and ahhhs and love shake the sleepies out of us.









After stockings, we joined each other around the tree, amazed by the magic of Santa, and the abundance and beauty of the morning. We could smell Alex's Yule sweet bread baking, the coffee brewing and hear Bing in the background.












Later Yule afternoon, we drove up to the Bradstreet homestead and had Christmas with Alex's family. We had a lovely time visiting and sharing the day with such good company.








Here, On Bradstreet, we celebrate Boxing Day and have done so for the past eight years, by having family and friends over for a big party. This year we visited with my Dad and Tim early in the day.




Here is where I made my Dad cry when we gave him a Blurb book of photos, all of his home, Ginger Brown Cottage.








Later that day we welcomed many of our friends to our home and we spent a joyous day catching up, playing, laughing and eating, of course! As usual, Alex and I spent too much time in the kitchen (we need more crockpots!) but we still enjoyed the good company of our friends. This also meant we didn't take nearly enough pictures of our Boxing Day festivities, just know we had almost twenty-five extra people here and we wish we had photos of you all!







After we said our goodbyes sometime around 830pm, we have a ritual of cleaning up all the party mess and dishes. I usually put some non-Yule music on, like chill or trance, and we spruce up the house. We're always tired, but it's so worth restoring order and waking the next day to a cheerful and tidy home.

By Saturday we were ready for a day of relaxation. We watched a movie, read, played with the new Nintendo DSs and napped. And it's been pretty much the same since. We love having Alex home, especially since he makes big breakfasts every day for us. We slow down, rest, enjoy each other's company, dive into those new books and games. At some point we clean up Yule and have the quarterly furniture rearrange. On New Year's Eve, though we always think we want to go out, we never do, and instead we stay home, gather up some movies and have a cheese and crackers dinner by the fire with the kids. They'll bang pots and pans at midnight and we'll call it good.

May the rest of your winter holidays find you full of blessings and making merry and bright as well. Cheers!

No comments:

Post a Comment

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...