Well, this was our first married Merry Christmas! It really gets a lot more hectic when you factor in two families and their traditions AND try to do it all in the same time frame–eek! Fortunately our parents are flexible and basically told us that we should do whatever we wanted and that would be fine with them. Let me tell you, that sure makes it easy!

Christmas Eve

Well, we thought that we were going over to my Aunt Janyne’s (in Lake Zurich) for hors d’oeuvres. (Sp?) We figured we would hang out over there for a few hours and then drive down to Oak Brook for church. Heh. Sometimes even the best laid plans just don’t work out. Turns out that Auntie Nee-nee (my name for her when I was little), decided to have a full turkey dinner instead. That would be okay if we ate around 6 ish. But since some family wasn’t getting there until 6:30, we didn’t eat until 7. We should have just left at 7:30 like we had planned, but we felt bad eating and running. We could have left at 9 or so and gone to the 11pm service, but FK was flying the next morning and had to be up at 4:30am. Yes. I’m not joking.

So our plans on going to church completely unraveled. Gr.

Christmas Morning

I vaguely recall FK getting out of bed and leaving for work. I do know that I told him he looked nice, to which he replied, “Emily, it’s completely dark in here–how do you know I look nice?” And I responded by rolling over. Hrmph. How can he be so sure I don’t have night vision???

I woke up around 7ish, cleaned up, showered and then had some pancakes ready for Frank when he came back from his flight to Milwaukee. Being 5 years old at heart, I couldn’t fathom the idea of Christmas morning without opening SOMETHING. So FK caved and let me open our gifts. He opened his first. I gave him several movies and CDs. Then I opened his. Oh my gosh–I thought I had been extravagant for the several movies and CDs–but he really went over the top!!! He gave us both a trip to Nassau in February! A five day, all inclusive trip to the Bahamas!!! OH MY GOSH!!! I’m sooooooooo excited!! eeeeek! I jumped on his lap and kissed him all over his face. He likes it. 🙂

Christmas Day

After I calmed down, we drove up to Antioch to visit FK’s family. I love them–we had a blast watching Luke, our favorite form of entertainment. See, Luke, is quite the little character (he is my 1 1/2 yr old nephew). He was taking grape tomatoes and jamming them in his mouth until he had 5 or 6. Then, when he finally bit down, juice and seeds came spurting out of his mouth. Panicked, he ran over to Grandma K and spit the rest out in her hands. OH MY GOODNESS. Too funny!!!

After the K house, we drove down to Palatine to see my side. We opened gifts and ate prime rib and had a jolly old time! 🙂 My parents got a pool table and a hockey game. It was surprising to see how good my grandma is ate the hockey game! Even with Parkinson’s, she scored SEVERAL goals!

The Day After

After our awesome Christmas, FK and I had tickets to go to the Hawk’s game. We hadn’t been to a game yet this season, so it was exciting to finally get to go! We went to the Locker Room for dinner and then watched the Hawks lose to the worst team in the division, the Blue Jackets. That team hadn’t won any games on the road, so I guess they were bound to win eventually…

The Day After the Day After

We drove down to Metamora, IL to watch my cousin David M marry Angie S in a very sweet winter ceremony. Not very wintery, though. It was 55 degrees!!! eeek! We had a lot of fun with our family, too!