our christmas ramblings….
We had a wonderful holiday week, finally slowing down after a long and intense season! Even though we aren’t done yet with albums and portraits and family pictures, we’ve tried to slow down this week to catch our breaths and enjoy our family!
Before our festivities began, Ali, Eli, my mom and Rene stopped by the local homeless shelter, St. Matthews House, to drop off a turkey, Christmas cookies and presents. It’s important for us to teach the girls to share and give during the holidays and any other time throughout the year. There are so many more people less fortunate than us and sharing makes the holidays so much better! If you haven’t given this holiday season, it’s not to late! Go to your local shelter and donate a few gifts or a few dollars. It doesn’t have to be much….any little bit helps.
After they dropped off goodies, it was time to sit down to our Christmas dinner. This year we didn’t do such a traditional dinner because Rene and I hosted. We wanted to do something totally different! So the menu included Spanakopita (which came out great if I do say so myself), roast beef, spiral ham, potatoes au gratin and Chicken Vol au Vents (courtesy of my mom), homemade cheese spread (courtesy of my mom-in-law), and lots of yummy desserts! Christmas cookies, a chocolate rasberry log, a guava log and of course, M&M’s completed the meal!
After dinner and on Christmas Eve, the girls and their cousin Chris, happily opened presents! We don’t open presents Christmas morning, we get to open them at midnight, Christmas Eve, which technically IS Christmas morning, right?? So we just do it much earlier than usual!
The big hits this year were the Ugobe’s Pleo, which Ali happily named Molly and then changed to Chloe. And the community barn chock full of horses, farm animals and hay! Christopher got a new bike, complete with Spider man helmet and protective gear! The kids LOVED it and it was great to see them with such big smiles on their faces.
On Christmas Day, we went to the pier to take a walk around and soak up some of the locals. The pier has always been a favorite place of ours to walk and just enjoy the Gulf. On Christmas day, there was plenty of people fishing, swimming, looking for shells and just enjoying this paradise we call home!
Feeling thirsty and looking for something to munch, we (unhappily for Ali) headed over to the Dockside Boardwalk, which is just south of Tin City. Of course, not much was open but we did find a little gem open on Christmas day! The Pickled Parrot was serving drinks and chips. That was all that was on the menu and we happily had a few baskets of potato chips while the girls had lemonade and we enjoyed one of our favorite German beers on tap, Warsteiner! I love this area….if you come down to Naples, make sure to visit the Dockside and Tin City!
What a perfect week! From our family to yours, we hope that you had a beautiful holiday season, too!
Astrid and Rene
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