Christmas in Harlem

This year for the holidays we spent Christmas day with my family in Harlem. I was very excited to give my family the knitted gifts that I'd made and they were a success.

I had the idea for this scarf right when I bought the yarn, but had trouble getting something to take shape. I finally decided to go with simple ribbing and leaf beads. Doesn't the result look nice on my mom?

For my Dad and brother I decided to make them each a pair of felted wool slippers.

I was so excited that they fit right!

Esteban in particular was excited about the slippers and that was fun. My dad opened his present first so when Esteban unwrapped a box labeled "ladies mary janes" he was a little skeptical.

And then when he actually opened up the box, Esteban was pleasantly surprised when he opened his box and got a pair too.

I hope they're both still as excited about them as they look in these pictures

For Sofia I decided to go with something nice and fuzzy so I made her some beaded mohair wrist warmers. They don't quite match her little hat with ears from last year, but I think they came out well.

I got Todd a book by John Irving. I know Todd likes John Irving and this particular one caught my attention while I was in a local book store so I decided to support them and get it there. Until I Find You is a book that John Irving wrote in 2005 and during an interview segment the author said that he wanted his research to be authentic and so he actually got two tattoos.

Christmas was an adventure for nearly whole family as we brought Buddy and Firenze. Ginger, the antisocial kitty got to stay home. Here, Buddy and Oliver commiserate about only being allowed out once every 5 minutes.

For Christmas lately we've been switching it up a little from the usual holiday turkey and this year for the main course we had a delicious lamb roast. This new tradition is a favorite of mine and this year it did not disappoint.

And for dessert we had some extremely tasty key lime pie thanks to Esteban's hard work. Man, those little key limes are a pain to juice!

Pre-Christmas in Kent

Lately we've been doing most of our driving early in the morning.  Our trip to Kent to spend time with Todd's family before Christmas fell right into that pattern.  We bundled Firenze and Buddy into the car.  Ginger always stays home.  It's better that way.  She's not really very friendly.  She only tolerates the dog and terrorizes strangers and strange animals.  And by terrorize I mean bites and scratches and makes awful noises.  She is much happier at home, so unless we're gone for more than a few days, we empty the kitty litter, fill up the food and water dishes and make sure the emergency pet alert sticker is firmly adhered to the window.  

Firenze got to come with us because we decided that he was too little to stay by himself.  We got him situated in the cute new little cat carrier and he promptly threw up.  Then he got spend the rest of the ride comfortably ensconced in my coat.  

One of the reasons we headed out early was so that we could make it to Borders before I needed to be on a conference call.  I stayed in the car while Todd went in and as I was sitting there with the car-sick cat, I was thinking it would be really nice if I had a cup of coffee.  Conveniently Todd came back with two delicious lattes - one peppermint mocha and one gingerbread.  The gingerbread one had the cutest tiny little gingerbread cookie in it!  

When we finally got to Todd's mom's house we were greeted by an interestingly wrapped present in the shape of a giraffe - complete with purple tongue and red horns!

Firenze immediately figured out that cats belong under the couch.  That's Twoie on the left, in matching orange.

Eventually he came out to sit with the dog. 

And to have some shrimp with all the other cats.

And he warmed up to Melissa quickly.

We had a great time in Kent, but that will have to wait until I can get the other pictures off the camera.

Holidays at Home

This year the Christmas holiday conveniently falls on a Thursday giving us a four day weekend, so we decided to take off the rest of the days that week to give us a little time at home before doing all the family visits.  

After our failure to get a cute picture of Buddy at my mom's party, we tried again at home. 

The ones of Buddy and Firenze worked out pretty well, but adding Ginger was a problem because Firenze kept attacking her and she wouldn't let us put her on the couch anywhere near them.  Finally we managed to get this one:

I rewarded Ginger for her forbearance by sticking Buddy's bow on her head.  Good kitty!

'Good Kitty' is not appreciative.

Then I thought it would be fun to get a picture of Firenze in a present bag with some of the presents.  Unfortunately I hadn't realized that he was almost too big to fit in the bag, and that sitting in a bag wasn't his idea of fun.  

We then moved on to building our gingerbread train.  Last year we got a gingerbread house and Clint came over to help us with that one.  This year we decided to switch things up a little and chose the train option.  

When we were trying to decide if not getting a gingerbread house was a good way to mitigate the blooming Costco bill, Todd said "Couldn't we just make gingerbread?"  To which I replied "Do we want to actually build a house out of it?"  Because making home made gingerbread to build a house out of sounds like a good idea, but it requires more time and planning than most people probably realize.  And you have to make a specific kind of gingerbread to do it with.  So that has been added to our to do list for the weekend after Thanksgiving in 2009, along with buying a tree and sending out Christmas cards.  I know I have a reputation for being a little bit of an uber-planner and being a little over ambitious, but seriously, the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas just evaporates.

Since we were at home and there was lots of lovely snow outside we thought it'd be fun to take Buddy the mini-snow bear out for a romp.  There is a nice big park on the other side of town - which unfortunately has a track, but not a dog run - so we went there.  

Buddy was in his element!  He even got to meet a snowman.  Um, unfortunately, this is what Buddy thought of him.  

And of course, Buddy came back to take a nap with his best bud.

Here is our lovely Christmas tree with handmade tree skirt (by Todd's mom).  

And this is what happened with we tried to add Firenze to the picture. 

Caroling in Greenwich

This past weekend was the annual Naylor Christmas Caroling trip in Greenwich.
Ever year my uncle throws a party for friends and family and we all bundle up and serenade the neighborhood.  Two years running we've gotten real snow for our adventure and this year it was snowy but not freezing like the year before.  My uncle and his friends that organize the caroling are super organized and set us up with candles and photocopied handouts with the songs and, most importantly, hand warmers.  This year there were twenty or thirty of us including ten kids.  The kids were charged with ringing the doorbells while we assembled in front of each house and started the first verse.
We must have made it to twenty houses because I think we went through the whole set of carols twice.  I forget how much fun it is to run around singing in the snow and I'm always glad when we go.
There is also the incredibly tasty spread that my aunt puts together for the after-caroling festivities.  We got one great picture of the pile of shoes on the doorstep and actually couldn't fit them all in the frame.

Tree Trimming in Harlem

This year my mom had the very smart idea of throwing a tree trimming party (the First Annual!).  We got to bring Buddy and he was quite a hit, both in person and vis-a-vis a video of Buddy and Firenze boxing on our bed.  At some point I'll figure out how to break it up so I can post it to the blog; it's too big to post all at once.  There was lots of tasty food and excellent peppermint martinis.  We all took turns adding ornaments to the tree (with the help of the ladder) so that my mom and Todd could have some help with the top third of the tree.  One of the wonderful things about having a house with such nice high ceilings is that you can get a nice big Christmas tree.  As a kid I remember encouraging my family to get the biggest tree possible every year and despite my usually competent sense of space I occasionally prevailed upon my parents to get such a big tree that we needed to open both of the front doors to get it into the house and still ended up with a explosion of pine needles and an adventure with a saw.
We all opened up Christmas crackers, and the best part of them is always the little paper crown that comes inside.  Also, watching the the little pieces of the toys go whizzing through the air when you open them is a lot of fun.

After we got the tree properly trimmed, we did a little bit of Christmas fellowship and read and shared Christmas stories and songs.

Towards the end of the night we were trying to get some holiday pictures of the dog.  Unfortunately he didn't like the little knitted snow men.

Or the santa hat.

Best Buds: Buddy and Firenze (fih-REN-zee)

  We were hoping that Ginger and Firenze would make friends, and they do play a bit.  But Buddy and Firenze have quickly become best buds.  They sleep together, they wrestle together, they eat together, they chew Buddy's bone together....it's pretty adorable.  The best cats are raised by dogs, in my experience.