Christmas!

 Dinner prep: leg of lamb with garlic and rosemary; whole duck with five-spice and oranges

 Christmas morning! So many presents under the tree, and in the stockings!

Little elves, busily distributing presents

The children and their piles...

 soccer boy was happy with his haul

 Roxana got a new mini guitar! So cool!

fun with new climbing quickdraws

Cookie monster/Paddington Bear

 new earrings!

 Breakfast! fig bread, bacon, eggs, fruit, yogurt and jam.

 Go Kim!

 Danica got a build your own computer - so cool.

 Liesl and Roxy put together a dancing show for us.

In the afternoon, Grandpa and Popo took the younger girls out for a walk in the Arboretum, Seb got to play at the field, and the four adults all went for long-ish runs.

 We called the Raabs in New York to wish them a merry Christmas over Facetime and to open the presents that they sent. Liesl LOVES her new singing Anna and Elsa dolls. :)

 Time for dinner! Carving up the lamb and duck.

My ill-fated gingerbread apple upside down cake. It leaked caramel all over the oven (note to self: do not bake in springform pan; must use 10 inch cake pan), set off the smoke detectors, continued to drip sugar everywhere and smoke up the whole place and cover our oven floor ... I threw water on the oven floor and a little fire started ... we had to remove the cake half-baked. At Kim's suggestion, we tried steaming it in a giant pot on the stovetop, and that worked beautifully. But in the end, after causing a disastrous ruckus, it tasted amazing. :)

Dinner: lamb and duck, roasted potatoes, wild rice stuffing, delicata squash with chevre, cauliflower, radicchio salad, pumpkin/apple/cranberry bread. Cake and chocolate cream pie for dessert. Yum.