Had a holly, jolly Christmas

Christmas is a time of quiet reflection, and of spending quality time with the family. Unfortunately, what I realized over this Christmas vacation is that it's nearly impossible to do both with my family. Turns out my family is LOUD. Don't know why I never realized that before, but it's true. (I know it's also hard to believe that I, the queen of quiet, hail from a loud family.)

We spent Christmas at my parent's house in San Diego, and it was loads of fun. For the first time in years and years, my family actually got to sit inside the actual church for Christmas Eve mass, instead of the bingo hall. We went to a later mass, 8:30, which we were finally able to do, because all the kids are old enough to stay up a little later now. Even my nephew, Johnny, who just turned four. He was a big hit during mass, singing "Go Tell It On the Mountain" at the top of his lungs, and playing with a handful of (unlit) candles. It's hard to be mad at a disruptive little kid when he's that cute.

Say "cheese!" Or in Johnny's case, "Cheesy grin!"

My poor mom was sick, so this is the most we saw of her.

Mark woke me early by opening the door and, with a grunt, throwing a giant blue bean bag straight at me.

"Look what Santa brought me!" he shouted.

"Cool," I answered, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. It turned out to be a very popular gift--a bit of a kid magnet. They couldn't keep off of it.

Room for one more.

I heard excited voices in the room next door. Christmas morning had arrived, and soon enough, it was a blur of frenzied children and wrapping paper flying through the air.

Mark got the things he wanted most, including purple skinny jeans. My brothers proceeded to mock them (they are a really bright purple), but Mark just shrugged it off. (I love that about him!) He also got a super cool Jeep seat belt buckle belt from Seth and Sasha, which held up his tad-bit-too-big purple pants.

"Tuck your shirt in so people can see the belt," I told him.

"That's not really my style," he answered back.

"What's the point of wearing a cool belt if no one can see it?" I asked

He answered, "Uh, to hold up my pants?" and I had to admit he was right.

Purple skinny jeans and one happy boy!

The big hit of the day were the Nerf guns. All the kids got them, and the house went from flying gift wrapping to flying Nerf bullets. You couldn't walk anywhere in the house without getting shot--my dad even unloaded a whole magazine on me. My brother Smed set up Johnny and Grant's buckets of soldiers all along the couch, and all the boys (Smed included) took turns strafing the couch. It was a bit unnerving.

My nieces both got new phones. 10-year-old Gabi proceeded to send me approximately 147 text messages within the first hour, most of them while sitting right next to me. She wasn't at all interested in the phone's calling capabilities, and I'm predicting she'll get carpal tunnel in her wrists by age 12.

We ate a big holiday meal, which was excellent, and then went over to visit our friends, the Fera-Schanes. We took the kids, who were delighted when Sasha asked if they wanted to be filmed. (She's a grad student in children's programming.) I'm not sure what exactly was taped, but I could hear them bouncing and shrieking in the room next door.

I was in San Diego for the long haul during my brothers' overlapping visits. On Sunday, my sis-in-law Mary and I took our kids to the zoo. They liked the tour bus ride through the park, although the only animal that really interested them was a man dressed as an elf.

"Hi, elf!" Gabi yelled at him, which Grant thought was hilarious. Soon, they were both yelling, "Hi, elf! Bye, elf!" and completely missed the bears on the other side of the bus.

It was cold and gray, and the kids begged for something hot to drink. We bought them hot cocoa, which unfortunately, seemed to be missing a key ingredient--cocoa.

"It tastes like brown water," Nathalie observed. I immediately set mine down--the last thing I wanted to do was drink brown water at the zoo! Mark followed suit, but Gabi and Grant finished theirs, and spent the rest of the afternoon on a sugar high. Gabi decided to take pictures with her new phone and promptly filled up the memory card taking pictures of the signs at the koala exhibit. (I don't think she photographed any live koalas, just the signs.)

On Monday, my brother Tim and his family came to town. They love Coronado, so we piled into a couple cars and drove over to the dog beach at sunset. The colors were amazing, and even though it was chilly, the kids had a blast at the beach.










On Tuesday, we all went to Sea World. The kids spent most of the day getting soaked, by dolphins, Shamu and even the roaring rapids ride.








Tim managed to catch Grant at some point and tie his sweatshirt into a knot. It was pretty hard to convince Grant to go anywhere near Tim after that.



By Wednesday, it was raining once again, and we were trapped indoors with all the little hooligans. I decided that it was time for us to go, so Mark and I packed up all our gifts and stuffed them into the car. I was really worried the giant bean bag wouldn't fit, but we poked, prodded and pushed it until it did.

And then we piled into the tiny space left in the car and drove off, happy but tired. And Mark was already talking about what he wants for next Christmas!