Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! All the things...

And just like that - it's January!

December went by pretty fast for me.  Sarah was home from school on the 4th. She had a paper to submit and an online exam due at the end of that week but they could be turned in/taken from home so that was nice.  

Dan headed to Ireland on December 11th but flew out of Raleigh so he was able to have lunch with Peter after he finished his last exam.  I was glad he got to see both kids before his trip since his time with them over their break was going to be minimal.

I worked 4 days a week while the kids were home and other than sleeping in and hanging out with friends, I'm not exactly sure what they did but they kept busy.

Dan came home from Ireland on December 22nd.  He kept threatening that he might not make it home until the 24th so the fact that he was home on the night of the 22nd was wonderful.

Thanks to online shopping, I was ready for Christmas.  I would estimate that I did roughly 85% of my shopping online and the other 15% was done at my work!  (Thank goodness for my employee discount!) 

We did our traditional Christmas Eve service at the Moravian Church I attended growing up.  (My mom and brother still go there.)  It's always such a beautiful service and this year was no different. Sarah's boyfriend Joe went with us and Jennifer's family joined us as well.

Afterwards, we came back here for party foods and festive drinks.  We had a great time and as usual, I have zero pictures from the night.  Next time we are together, I should just tell the kids to take a bunch of pictures and see what they come back with. 

Dan and I were up early on Christmas morning.  Well, it felt early since we were up late on Christmas Eve, but we were up by 8:00.  We put out all the gifts and filled all the stockings and got the kids up at 8:30.  We made coffee and got to unwrapping!  

 

We always unload the stockings first - that's our favorite part!  And then we do the other gifts.  Unwrapping all the smaller unknown gifts in the stocking is always fun.  There are always a mix of useful and fun.  I thinking shopping for the stocking stuffers is my favorite thing too!

 

After gifts we got dressed and headed to Christmas Mass where we met Cathy (Dan's sister) who had just driven down with her partner Eric from Delaware.

After Mass we went to  mom's house for a delicious lunch and more presents. We also took our annual Tesh Family photo.  That's the picture that we've been taking since 1997.  It's always in the same spot and whoever is with us for the meal at Christmas is in the photo.  I love that I accidentally started a tradition in 1997 when I got a new camera with a timer and we are still doing it!  

A full lunch table needs to be documented.

My beautiful mom!

 

My mom puts together the best gift baskets!

The annual photo!

After celebrating with mom and Brad, we came back here and unwrapped presents with Cathy and Eric and called Dan's brother Dick and his family and then called Dan's uncle. I made turkey and cranberry quesadillas which were actually quite yummy and then we settled down to watch Home Alone.  Dan and the kids had never seen it and I hadn't seen it since 1990 so it was practically like seeing it for the first time. 

The next morning we got up and ate breakfast and then piled in the car and headed to Asheville. It's a 2 and a half hour drive.  Normally its a nice drive but it was pouring rain the entire time.  It stopped raining when we got there though and we had a delicious lunch at Pack's Tavern. (We've been there several times before and it's always good.)

After lunch we headed to The Grove Park Inn to check out all the entries in the National Gingerbread Competition.  The resort was beautiful and there were some really lovely gingerbread creations.  

View from the resort.  The sun actually tried to come out for a second.

These are just a few of the top entries in the competition. My photography doesn't do them justice and I couldn't even get a picture of the grand prize winner because it was behind glass and was rotating so that you could see all sides of it.  

The rain started again as soon as we got in the car to head home but we made it safe and sound and just in time for dinner.  I made a really delicious chicken pot pie soup and then we all settled in to watch Heat.  It was a three hour movie so I made popcorn too. It was a good movie and definitely didn't feel like it lasted three hours.

Cathy and Eric headed back to Washington on Wednesday morning and Dan headed to the doctor.  He had been complaining of knee pain since he got back from his trip and his leg was swelling from the knee down whenever it wasn't elevated.  The doctor wanted him to get a scan of the leg so that was scheduled for the next day.

Thankfully the scan did not show a blood clot (which is what the doctor was worried it might be) but instead showed a Baker's cyst.  So he has been icing it, elevating it, and using a compression sleeve on it to help with the swelling and the pain.  And his back started hurting to.  This man is falling apart. 

On New Year's Eve, we had our traditional dinner at Tokyo with Jennifer and her family and then came back home where we watched football and Dick Clark's Rocking New Year's Eve.  After the ball dropped, Sarah and I immediately went up to bed but Dan and Peter stayed up until who knows when but we did get a Midnight selfie.

New Year's Day was  a lazy day.  We went to McKay's which is a huge store that sells used book, records, games, etc.  We poked around in there for a while then went downtown and got coffee at Bitty and Beau's. Bitty and Beau's is a small chain that employees people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.  Dan and I have been to the location in Charleston but had yet to visit the location in Winston even though it's been open for a year.  

Then I helped Dan pack for yet another trip to Ireland and we watched both more football.  And on Tuesday morning Dan headed to the airport and will (hopefully) be home on the 12th but he warned me he might have to stay longer.

The kids have had haircuts and dentist appointments this week  and I went back to work on Wednesday.   It was nice having everyone together - even it was only for a week.  I will always be grateful for the time we spend together and will never take it for granted. 

We took this family selfie right before Dan headed to the airport:

Aren't we cute? :)