{ Christmas Day }

the day began with a huge {and i do mean huge} breakfast at mike's parents' house.

in contrast to my family, with hordes of aunts and uncles and cousins and cousins' spouses and cousins' children living nearby and all taking part in family festivities at christmastime, all mike's relatives can still fit around the kitchen table.

there are his parents, his sister amaryah, his aunt marian, his cousin stephanie, stephanie's husband scott, and their three girls: bethany, destiny, and estella.

however, should amaryah bring home a boyfriend for any holiday or birthday dinners, there will not be room for him.

sorry, amaryah.

mike was pleased as punch about christmas breakfast--it's his favorite meal of the year--as well as starbucks christmas blend--it's his favorite roast of coffee--and the very manly coffee mug i gave him.

amaryah loves to cuddle baby estella. at 20 months, estella doesn't like to stay still for long; this is one of only two semi-decent shots i got of them!

i actually managed to take a posed shot of cousin stephanie's family! from left to right, here are estella, stephanie, scott, destiny, and bethany.

the photo below cracks me up!

diesel, amaryah's dog, was 100% focused on the chance that mandy might, just might, let her have a taste of all the wonderful-smelling food we were eating. the back half of diesel's body was hanging off of mandy's leg, but that did not deter diesel in the least. she just kept her nose pointed at whatever mandy was eating and wagged her tail as fast as she could.

i am not a big fan of monty python, but the menfolk are. i think i'm missing some sort of cultural context that makes him funny to people who are familiar with that context. or maybe i'm just missing a vital humor gene. anyhow, dan's slippers were a christmas gift last year...something about killer bunnies from monty python and the search for the holy grail. he wore them all day.

in spite of mike and i sniffling and blowing our noses all day, it was a really good christmas. it's nice to be able to spend extended time with family without it being full of things to do. we spent a lot of time cooking and washing dishes, but there was also time to browse new books, play with estella, and nap. mike and i also went bowling with scott and destiny in the afternoon {scott is really big into bowling}.

what were your christmas highlights?