"Ohhhh, I'm the happiest Christmas tree!"

Ho-ho-ho, hee-hee-hee!

Another Christmas has come and gone. This year was a special one, to be sure. It's not often that our entire family is gathered in one place and especially rare (particularly in the near to distant future) for us all to be home in Colorado at the same time. As an added bonus, everyone (for the most part) remained healthy! That was quite a victory, let me tell you.

So let's see if I can be succinct, I'll make my best attempt but can't guarantee success.

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As you can see by my fancy symbolic representation of the passage of time, I got distracted. AND, I keep wanting to write about the new year but feel obligated to catch up by covering Christmas first. Ergo, I'm going to resort to a pictorial (totally thought it was pictoral, but Google tells me it has an i) recap. If I'm feeling ambitious you may get a few more words for clarity's sake, but don't hold your breath (not sure why you would in this instance, but it seemed the thing to say). I know, I'll do some headings.

We'll start with "Reenactment of 1999 Family Photo Shoot, in which the famous dogpile pose was replicated"

Eating Cereal

(Don't worry, they get better)

With my Oregon niece and nephew

(See?)

And all we had to say to entice James to turn around was "Katie is doing it!"

"The Guys"

Supermom. Seriously.

Some Christopher-directed love

(Can you see it? Cause I totally can)

The Blizzard

Baking

Cuteness.

Three words: "Just keep [scrolling]."

Watching Meet Me in St. Louis

(Natalie caught me)

Our Cute Tree.
The Perfect Petersons

(Sorry, it's either that or perennial, for some reason that's all I got right now)

The Wonderful Whitmers

The Book

A Michael Ciaglo Original

The superheroes.

Natalie's awesome DVD grab bag present

(My finger was supposed to be aimed at the DVD, not myself...my bad)

Our oh so indescribably delicious Christmas feast.

A stocking stuffer mastered.

(Those five tops are spinning in a tower!)

The man of our Christmas Eve pajama hour

"Peak the Strategy!" (i.e., the name of Michael's band)

Random

(Wearing all my scarves at the same time before packing them up)

First things first: I apologize, Thanksgiving.

I'm ashamed. I missed a holiday (in the blogging sense). Me, missing a holiday? I love holidays! I'm a Hansen! I'm the daughter of a holiday fairy! I've neglected Thanksgiving! That poor holiday that is already so overshadowed and I inadvertently contributed to its minimization...well better late than never. Let's start with a picture (I kind of took a short hiatus from taking pictures, so this is about all I have and it's thanks to my dutiful younger sister):

And it's a good thing Natalie caught this one when she did, because this is what followed!

Oh Daddy, you make me laugh. We had a nice Thanksgiving holiday with my mom's side of the family in Syracuse, UT. We ate some yummy food, enjoyed the break from school/work, and took advantage of some Black Friday deals...many of you are aware that my participation as a consumer didn't stop there and I happily continued my shopping trends on Cyber Monday as well. It's true, I (the very same Jamie, I assure you) have found a way I enjoy shopping: online (gotta say, I'm kind of huge fan of Amazon now) and/or with Natalie (seriously, she makes any excursion way fun, but particularly shopping adventures; I wouldn't have wanted to brave Target at midnight on Black Friday with anyone else!).

Anywhich (ooh, that's a new one!), my new-found materialism aside, we also had the opportunity to attend little Christopher's blessing--for some reason I smile at the pairing of "little" with Christopher, oh that's right, maybe this is why:

Love those cheeks little man! It was a lovely, delightful, pleasant, enjoyable holiday. Gratitude abounded. Much and many thanks were expressed. No pilgrims, but family and plenty of food.

And so ends this official blog-style commemoration of Thanksgiving, 2011. Apologies for my tardiness.

"This is Halloween, everybody make a scene."

Hey there, hi there, ho there! Once again Halloween has come and gone and I had a lovely time. I celebrated with Paula and the rest of the wonderful Whitmers (Brian, Becca, Katie, and Christopher, that is) during the weekend prior and then in my own small way commemorated the appointed day by dressing up and of course the traditional hot chocolate and doughnuts Monday night. We had done this together on Saturday night with the recipe for hot cocoa that Grandma used but it was still fun to do a little do-over on the night of Halloween. After all, it's "trad-i-TION!"/"It's tradition!" (Wow, same words but two separate references! Did you catch them both? If so, props and kudos...remember Kudos bars? Whatever happened to those?)

As we were...the weekend was fun-filled and so enjoyable for me. I sure love that family and treasure the time I get to spend in their company. We had chili and cornbread, carved pumpkins; we even watched a British zombie movie. How 'bout them apples? "It was freakin' hilArious."

Picture time!

Sorry it's a little blurry. We all got a kick out of how he looked in this onsie. He's definitely a growing boy! :)

Again sorry for Katie's blurry hands. She had been singing a very cute (and festive) song. In fact, if you want to see it for yourself, Paula posted such a great video of Katie singing it here. SO cute!

I don't think Becca was in a picture mood (I don't blame her, we all have those moments). But she sure got happy fast right after this when Christopher started to get fussy. I love how Becca is so amused by Katie and Christopher's tantrums. :)

I think Katie appreciates our Grandma's doughnut tradition. (Indulge me, it wasn't until recently I discovered that practically everyone and their mom has doughnuts on/around Halloween. I've always associated it with my dear sweet Grandma Hansen and will continue to do so.)

And now the moment you've all been waiting for. Since literally none of you got to see me dressed up in my clever costume, I went to great lengths to make sure I got pictures. But first, a little background. At first glance, you may think, "Well she went as a Braves fan." And that would be a true, albeit incomplete assessment. Just in case any of you didn't know: the Braves suffered one of the WORST collapses in MLB history this year. In other words, they really should have made it to the playoffs but didn't on account of their EIGHTEEN losses in September. Sigh. It still hurts. Anyway, the psychologist in me thought it would be an appropriate time to dress up as the first stage in the grieving process - denial:

Now before any of you critics (I don't suppose I have any of those in my audience, but for the sake of argument we'll pretend you exist) point out that you're supposed to dress up as something you're not for Halloween, let me assure you: I'm way past the shock and denial phase. I clearly also did the pain, anger, and depression stages leading up to and through the World Series (it's largely why I checked out of the Series entirely this year, which is too bad because apparently it was a doozy!) I'd say the very act of using Halloween so therapeutically is a definite sign that I'm all the way to reconstruction and working through, wouldn't you?

Happy belated-Halloween, everyone. Hope you celebrated and enjoyed. I was the only one in my program that dressed up. What an under-appreciated and dare I say misunderstood holiday. I guess Christmas already had its way with Thanksgiving; it was only a matter of time before it knocked off Halloween too. (I totally saw/heard Christmas commercials before Halloween this year. Really?)

Oh and happy end of daylight savings time. Sleep so sweet in your extra hour, if the kiddies will allow it...which I suppose is unlikely. Enjoy the extra hour to get ready for church in a more leisurely fashion? :)