We LOVE the holidays. Chris' favorite holiday is Thanksgiving and Kate loves Christmas. We spent the holiday seasons like most people - enjoying time with friends, family and good food!
The week of Thanksgiving Kate's parents came up to New York to visit and to do some wedding planning. We took them to four wedding venues and all agreed on one final one! Now we just need to pick a date and start the contract! We also took Kate's parents to Chris' favorite steak place - Keens. This is where Chris wants to have our rehearsal dinner so that was our "excuse" for going to dinner there and taking a tour. As expected, they loved it. It wasn't all wedding planning while they were here. We also took in some NY pizza, an Irish pub, visited Former President Grant's tomb, and saw the Broadway show War Horse. If you haven't seen War Horse at Lincoln Center, you must! It's such an amazing show and the theatre is small so there are no bad seats. This Christmas the movie version came out. We haven't seen the movie yet but heard it's good but not as good as the show. Most movies aren't as good as live theatre, though. We always love when they come to visit. And every time they visit we go to at least one Broadway show.
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| Kate's Dad, Dave, enjoying an Irish pub specialty - Shepard's pie |
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| A scene from War Horse (a pic I found online) - the horse is actually a puppet but after a few minutes into the play, you forget it's a puppet and accept it for a live horse |
After Kate's parents left, it was only a few short days until Thanksgiving! Ever since moving to NY 4-5 years ago, we've spent Thanksgiving here with friends and now we really look forward to meeting up every year for Thanksgiving. Everyone still gets to bring their favorite side dish or dessert but we order in the turkey. NY apartments don't have big kitchens or ovens so putting together a large dinner like this really involves a lot of planning. Thankfully our friends Liz and Tina are the perfect team in organizing this dinner. And Brandon and Tina have a great dinning table to fit the 10 people who end up spending this holiday together.
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| Brandon, Liz, Chris, and Tina preparing Thanksgiving dinner |
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| Tina and Liz making dessert |
Now, fast forward to Christmas! We are lucky that Kate's parents and sister live only 30-40 miles from Chris' parents and sister. Our trip to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area for Christmas is hectic but at least we get to see both families.
We spent the first few days of our trip with Kate's family. Our first day we wrapped presents and went to our favorite Tex Mex restaurant, Uncle Julio's. As you can imagine we bought pretty much all of our presents on our Summer trip and so we shipped those to our parents house - which is why the first day was focused on wrapping presents and getting ready for the holiday. On Christmas Eve, Kate's sister's boyfriend and his family came over for a fancy Christmas dinner. We eventually ended up in the living room drinking wine, eating dessert, and watching old home movies of Kate and her sister, Sarah. Everyone had a good time laughing at how silly and adorable Kate and Sarah were as little girls. After our company left, we opened Christmas presents with Kate's family before heading to the 11pm church service. Kate loves going to the late service because it lets out at midnight which is Christmas morning! We really enjoyed watching Kate's family open their presents from around the globe. And of course, we loved opening our gifts from them! We got clothes, DVDs, some "How to be a great husband/wife" books from the 50's, and many other things.
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| Amazing homemade sweets! |
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| Olive, Kate's sister Sarah's dog - all dressed up for Christmas dinner |
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| Beautiful (and tall!) tree with oh so many presents! |
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| Kate's sister, Sarah, modeling some Christmas gifts |
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| Kate's parents, Dave & Linda, showing one of my mom's gifts from India |
Christmas Day was very hectic, as we're sure it is for most families. We had a large breakfast of homemade cinnamon rolls, blueberry muffins, eggs, bacon with Kate's family. Then we opened our gifts from "Santa." Around lunch time, we headed over to Chris' parents house to open presents with his parents, sister and brother-in-law. We had a light lunch of sandwiches, cured meats and cheeses. Of course "Santa" had gifts here, too - toothpaste and candy! What a sense of humor "Santa" has! :-) We then watched Chris' family open the many presents from around the world. And of course we got some great gifts as well. The celebrating, and eating, didn't stop there! Next it was off to the neighbor's for dinner and then to Chris' brother-in-law's family for amazing ribs and Tex Mex. To say we over-ate on Christmas would be an understatement!
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| Kate's mom, Linda, joined us for Christmas with Chris' family |
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| Derek (Chris' bro-in-law) with Linda (Chris' mom) and Michelle (Chris' sister) in their Japanese kimonos |
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| Derek and his new bookends from China |
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| A very traveled-looking present. Shipped from India, purchased in Cambodia |
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| Inside the package: rice paper artwork from the temples in Cambodia! |
We weren't in Texas for very long but we did both get to catch up with some friends we don't get to see often.
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| Amanda and Kate at Library Bar at the Dallas Warwick |
It's difficult, and very expensive, for us to come down to Texas for Christmas but it's so worth it. We always have a great time and enjoy seeing our loved ones over amazing food.
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