Merry Christmas!

Wishes for a very Merry Christmas and a great 2011. I thought I'd post some pics of our decorations. The girls collect antique or antique looking Santas and I do too. I try to find them at garage sales or Goodwill, etc through out the year. I've really found some great ones at garage sales. Thought I'd better get some pics before they start taking their Santas or Val wants to take her Dickens Village. The tree looks very tall and skinny which it is but that's the kind we like to find. I never did get all of the ornaments hung on it.
We have always hosted Christmas eve and have a tradition of having cioppinno and apps. We always have another soup option since quite a few people don't like 'seafood' soup. This year I made Italian Wedding soup and it was delicious. The cioppino was very good too. We decided to change the gift giving this year (thanks Val) and make it a 'stealing gift game'. One $10.00 item per person was all that was needed to participate. It went really well and was fun so we'll do it again next year. It was neat to see people strategize and go for things they wanted. We had a good variety of gifts but the most sought after were the gourmet coffee and the 'scratchers'. We'll open gifts, snack all morning and head to Stan and Bea's for a 'Mexican fiesta' this eve. Meredith has to work tomorrow so she'll leave this afternoon. Wishing everyone 'heavenly peace' in the coming year, less stress, and lots of happiness!