Holidays, Holidays, 2015

My favorite time of yeeeear!  It was jam-packed.  Here, a few visuals…

The Annual Holiday Mart, complete with market goodies and foggy lake and crazy chillens.

Ginger-breadin’. (I had to throw away the gingerbread house after a few weeks because they slowly had picked off all the candy when Scott and I weren’t looking, GROSS.)

We did our annual trip for dinner (at a little spot that drops a plate of warm, fresh krumkake at your table as you peruse the menu; God bless the Norwegians) and the firetruck parade.

We drove around and looked at lights, and we visited Santa (newsflash: Santa went AWOL at the mall that day, no lie, we had to go back another time), did some holiday shopping/toy playing,

St. Nick came. We decorated the house.  We made all manner of treats (including Orangette’s peppermint bark, a mainstay and well received gift).

Pete and I took in his studio’s version of The Nutcracker.  Super good, and one of his chums danced in it, which was the highlight by far.

Oh, and we hit up the Festival of Trees in Chicago (as previously noted…).

We did the annual State Tree visit, and also took in the kid’s museum and dinner at The Old Fashioned.  Linus totally Hoovered his meal.  And I have an undying affection for the fact that they even serve the kid drinks in cocktail glasses, complete with cocktail straws.

And then finally: Christmas Eve.

And then Christmas morning.

I baked a “Cinnabon Monkey Bread”, it seemed to bake for a suspiciously short time but I was faithful to the recipe.  Until I released it from the bundt pan, then it was pretty clear that oh no, my suspicions were correct, that was not nearly enough time.  I chucked the uncooked spread o’ dough onto a baking sheet and put it in for the twice the recommended baking,and that seemed to do the trick.  Not very pretty, but it was still tasty.

(And yes, your eyes do not deceive you, we did indeed gift Linus with a toilet scrubber in his stocking.  He took right to it and leaves the ones in the bathrooms alone now, THANK THE LORD.)

After gift-opening and movie-watching and a lot of general all-around slothing, we put on some respectable clothing and went out for church then dinner. Indian, bring it on.

Ta daaaaa. And that kinda sums things up.  Until next year…