Holiday Recap, Part Two

The next day, we all piled in the car for another day of travel for me – to Colonial Williamsburg, which was our Christmas 2016 destination. The car ride was not too bad, though Craig has entered a whiny phase. When he’s distracted, he does ok, but when he gets bored, he just whines like it’s his job. There was some grumpiness from our Littlest on this trip, but not too much, and we made good time. We stopped briefly to drop off an iron table at my sister’s place, and she kindly agreed to take Jack in her van the rest of the way, giving him much more leg room and also letting him interact with his toddler cousin for a bonus few hours. We then caravaned up to our triple suite in Williamsburg, where we would join all of the remainder of my siblings, their spouses, and our parents.

We all arrived at about the same time, and after hugs at the check-in desk, we all set to moving into our three suites, including selecting bedrooms and Christmas decorating (and eating a delicious smorgasbord of food pre-prepped by my brother in law, including a divine baked ziti and some vegetable and broccoli cheese soups). My parents have a time share which we were able to use to get three adjoining suites. Each had a washer/dryer, full kitchen, and 1-2 separate bedrooms. Ours became the main space where we put up our fake Christmas tree – the small one I keep in the boys’ room (we set it on a side table and it was perfect). The Prof, Craig, and I shared one room, and my parents shared another. A connecting door joined this suite with the 1 bedroom next door, where my sister and her husband and baby shared a room, and where our older boys slept on a fold out couch. There was also a totally separate “childless adults” suite, which worked out perfectly – my two sisters and their two husbands each got a bedroom, and my poor unmarried brother made do with the couch, as he will probably be required to do as long as he remains a bachelor. Still though, the children never went into that suite, and it remained the late night games room/sleeping in late-ish room/napping room/football room, and even the parents were able to duck in and enjoy some child-free time several evenings.

We had planned to go to Colonial Williamsburg on Christmas Eve, but the day dawned miserably cold and rainy, so we decided to do it another day and just hung around the suites, eating, chatting, and playing games – and working out at the decent resort gym.

After a dinner of pizza, the children went to bed, and Santa’s elves set to work making Christmas happen.

The next morning, the boys woke up – not too early – and we shut them in our room until everyone was ready to get going. It’s always fun to torture them a bit. Then we dived in with unwrapping – everyone took a turn passing out gifts. It was a mess as usual, but the rip-tear was great catharsis for three little boys who have been anticipating this for days.

Or rather – two little boys.  The third little boy got a garbage truck as Present Number One, and that was basically his morning made.

For a gift idea, I mentioned to the fam that he likes garbage trucks – he ended up with four of them.

My niece had received a ball pit for her November birthday, which her parents brought to this trip as a toy for her to play with. The boys had those balls all over the place, and at one point were dragging Hannah around in the ball pit, her body half in and half out, her belly and legs dragging on the floor as she held on for dear life and cackled like a mad thing. She can hold her own with these much bigger boys – though she be but little, this one is fierce.

We used our various kitchens to make a fantastic Christmas dinner – mom made a turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes, I made cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes (a recipe posted by a friend on facebook, which included rum and was delicious), my BIL made a fresh green bean casserole with homemade cream of mushroom soup, as well as a creamed corn, my sister made a relish tray, another sister made pie, and we also had rolls.  I believe that covers the spread. It could not have been better, and it really helped to have three ovens, three stoves, and three fridges to make this feast for fifteen people.

After early dinner, the boys retired to the childless-suite to play a monster of a board game, a sort of dungeons and dragons role playing zombie something-or-other, while I indulged my inner twitchy OCD need for order and swept and tidied up the main room (helped by others). Eventually, I fished my husband out of the game room and solicited assistance to put our wound-up boys down to bed, and then we headed back in to play a more accessible card game called Saboteur, which was super fun and which I am apparently terrible at (no poker face). It was a great night – perfect Christmas.

I took zero pictures of boxing day – we had a nice restaurant meal, a visit from an aunt and uncle who live nearby, and Round One of the stomach flu – my poor mother was down for the count that whole day. The first couple had to go back home that day to work – my preggo sister and her spouse had to rush back, but originally they weren’t able to come at all so I’m so glad they worked it out with their respective employers. That night I went to bed early with a pretty bad headache, and woke up the next day ready to brow beat the others into heading to Colonial Williamsburg for a day of family fun.