Here's How It Went Down

It's hard to know what to say when there's too much to say. Do you skip over the holiday happenings? Or do you go into great detail? Well, here's the holiday run-down, briefly:

• As per Rasmussen (my mother's family) tradition, sickness was brought to the Christmas Eve celebration. One by one family members are succumbing to the pukes. Not us yet. But both my folks, several cousins, an aunt, grandpa, and two uncles. But before we realized we were all ill we had a lovely dinner as well as the nativity marionette show.
• At the Hinckley home Christmas morning, Chelsea proposed drawing names for a gift exchange next year. Hallelujah for holiday simplification.
• With Dan's birthday on Christmas sometimes his celebration gets short-changed. So we started a chimichanga party tradition with his high school friends. Among the things we learned: Deep fried Twinkies are perhaps the most delightful things ever eaten. Ever. But thinking about their nutritional properties makes me want to hurl. We almost caught our deck on fire--watched pots never boil, but unwatched pots sure do burn.
• Maggie loved opening presents on Christmas so much that the next morning she said to her brother, "Cole, come on! Presents!" and headed for the stairs to do it all over again.
• We have a very generous family. From Aunt Kara and Uncle Dave and their outstanding Christmas party, to all  4 of Maggie's adorable grandparents and their holiday cooking and gift giving, we were spoiled, spoiled, spoiled.
• The adorable kitchen from Costco is wonderful. But Maggie may very soon find herself with no play food if she doesn't learn to stop dumping it out. That child....