Christmas!

Christmas recap for the family

Merry day after Christmas! It has been a great holiday here in Chicago. Yesterday was a whirlwind of good cheer and tasty food. It seemed like it was almost non-stop festivities, well into the 26th.

The day started at 9:30am, with directions from Dad Swift to be ready for stockings and in our seats. It was a nice crowd. Myself and Dan, Azusa and Adam, Lolade, Nora, and Dan's parents were all circled around. After stockings and one present, we broke for breakfast. Every year on Christmas Eve, Linda and whoever is available will make pecan sticky buns to be enjoyed on Christmas morning. They are warm and gooey, with huge pecans on top. Coffee, sausage and scrambled eggs kept us energized as we laughed and plowed through the bounty that was under the Christmas tree.

We went all the way up to 2pm with activity, then broke again for naps, or play with new gadgets, or in Gus's case, got dinner going. Even though it seemed like we had just had a mound of delicious things for brunch, we sat down again at 4:30 to roast, green beans and my favorite, mashed potatoes!

Linda's family gets together every Christmas night at one of her cousin's homes, so about 6:30 we all met and enjoyed dessert of cookies and coffee. The Erf's are a warm and happy bunch with kids ranging age 4 to 20 (ish). There is lots of catching up to do. This year was particularly fun for me as one of Linda's cousins, Erica, had ordered one of my pouf pillows for a friend a few months ago, and I got to hear first hand how she liked it. It was Erica's first experience with Etsy, so I felt a little additional pressure to make sure he liked both her pillow, and the process for buying it. All went well! Linda also asked me to make some hand bags for the younger girls, and all of them were extremely happy with what they received. It was nice to share something of myself with this part of the family I only see once a year.

After getting home from the family events, Dan and I went off to a bar called Club Foot to meet his friend Josh for the holiday. We all then went over to James's house and I got to hear some wonderful stories of yesteryear. They were all animated in retelling their version of each tale, and somewhere in the middle the truth came out.

And as if that weren't enough fun for the weekend, today, some friends of Linda and Gus came for brunch and we got to have Sticky Buns 2.0! The conversations were animated and refreshing, and just now, a moment ago, the Bears won their game against the Jets. All around, it's been a great Christmas in Chicago!

I'll drive back to Bloomington tomorrow for work and hopefully get the rest of the boxes unpacked and the house set up. Just before leaving I got a package from my dad full of my sister's tasty jam and a new cookbook for the holidays. I am looking forward to going through it again, now that the holiday rush has calmed down. I can start the plan for next Christmas!

I promise, promise we will have Internet soon! More regular posts after the New Year.

The newest addition to life in Bloomington is a pretty big one. Dan and I moved all of his stuff in this last weekend in a marathon of boxes and driving. I took the train from Champaign to Carbondale, we packed it all the next morning and drove it to Bloomington Saturday night, unpacked it all Sunday morning, drove to Champaign to get my car, then drove both the truck and car to Chicago so we didn't miss the wonderful Swift Cookie Party.

Whew! We are still tired!

We have been wading through boxes and moving furniture around to make our lives fit in the apartment. The cats have been loving it - all of the nooks and crannies. And holy cow, we have a lot of cooking utensils!

Happy Christmas all! Enjoy the festivities and those specials people you get to spend it with. And to all of my family I won't get to see, I love you all and wish we were closer!