Christmas 2021

It was a very busy Christmas Day at our home in San Mateo as we hosted Christmas Day and dinner for the majority of the Cole family. Deb, Bruce, and Copper arrived from Grass Valley during Christmas Eve afternoon and Clancy, Vannessa, and their children arrived closer to 8pm on Christmas Eve. Vivienne was so excited to see her cousins and had a second night in a row of not going to bed until between 11pm to midnight.

This was the first Christmas that Vivienne somewhat understood the concept of Santa Claus as part of Christmas and the opening of gifts on Christmas Day. We tried to limit her gifts not knowing what gifting would take place for the rest of the kids, and we had decided to do a name draw for adults so that everyone felt less obligation of buying gifts for other people this season. That said, I made sure we had at least small gifts for all our guests, including Mimi (Bruce's sister from Oregon) who is currently staying with Deb and Bruce in Grass Valley.

Everyone enjoyed gifting and the "mystery gift" game of taking turns to name Christmas holiday movies. It came down to Penny and Vannessa naming movies with Jessica officiating to say whether a movie title was legitimate or had already been said. Penny was the proud winner of a fleece Christmas blanket.

Dinner was a success although a bit late with all the prep and cooking we took on. We had a mix of appetizers including deviled eggs, nut and veg plates, and some Mediterranean dishes before the main courses of Vegetarian lasagna (made that morning), Mediterranean chicken and orzo, and prime rib plus sides of vegetables and stuffing and gravy. We had a variety of desserts and enjoyed Jessica's pumpkin cheesecake cream pie.

Vivi and I napped for a couple hours between 4-6pm while Jessica and others helped clean up our kitchen and put food away. Consolidating all the food down into containers was necessary as we planned to pack and be ready the next morning to drive to San Diego for the start of our weeklong family vacation. Thankfully, everyone was in bed by 11pm before we were up and doing our final pack up of the house and our cars the next morning to drive to San Diego.