Happy New Year!

 We have been continuing to celebrate Christmas (we do all 12 days), and we had a an additional New Year's celebration.  As you may know, we open presents slowly: each person opens a present and then they go off and play with it.  We usually open about 3 presents on Christmas, and then one a day for the rest of the days.  That's not as hard as it sounds, since we are having small parties with friends through the 12 days.  This year, with every kid buying gifts for every other kid, we had a lot of presents!

On New Year's Eve, (7th day of Christmas) we visited Grammy's house and did a big extended family Christmas thing.  Have I mentioned I love the Emperor's family?  One of their traditions is for people to prepare a written memory, often of the people who have gone before us.  This year, Ole Ed did a funny and touching bit about the music different people in the family loved.  It was really lovely.

The funniest Christmas presents to date (we are still opening presents) are these "drinking glasses" which Grammy got for Choclo and Oob.  I don't know which was funnier, the name or the look of studious concentration on their faces!

That evening we had our New Year's bash starting with a fancy dinner which was a selection of hors d'oeuvres.

We counted down to midnight in Rio (8 our time), then toasted the new year (with cherry 7Up) and watched the fireworks in Sydney.


Then we pulled our crackers and watched a Cirque de Soliel.  This year was Saltimbanco - very fun!

I would say that it's a New Year's tradition for the boys to wear clashing PJs, but, really, it's more like a New Year's Resolution... several years in a row...