In the words of Kenny Rogers...

"Christmas Is My Favorite Time of the Year" (I grew up with Kenny. This song is comfort on a cold day.)


My family has come and gone. The tree's been hauled away. The decorations are in the attic. I am officially another year older. And I always feel a little melancholy this time of year. So I'm posting a whole mess of pictures of the truly fabulous Christmas we had as an entire family. Why, oh why, do we have to live so far away?

(Daniel, Addison, Mom, Dad, Eric, me, Makenna, Drew)


(These girls ADORE their grandpa. BTW, Makenna ran away from me the other morning, saying, "Missed me, missed me. Now you gotta kiss me." When asked where she heard that, she said, "My Grandpa taught me that.")


(Addison got so much attention from everyone while they were here. She and Eric became little buddies and she'd laugh whenever she saw him.)


Christmas Eve after our traditional beef stew and going to look at Christmas lights. We decided that VA needs to take a lesson from the West on how to show up your neighborhood with an obscenely gaudy light display- which is the only way to do it.


(Waiting at the top of the stairs Christmas morning. Makenna didn't get the whole "wait right here and let me check to see if Santa came" while we race to turn on Pandora's Christmas station and get the video camera ready. She said, "No. He came. I want to go see.")




See the stocking? We all have them. They're a Bird Family tradition. My grandma used to make them for all her kids, spouses, and grandkids. Then recently it became hard for her to knit them as she's gotten older. This year we finally got them made for the girls- so cute and I'm so grateful we have them now. I think it may be one of my motherly duties to learn how to knit these works of art.









Birthday dinner at our favorite Mexican place- Guapo's. If you ever come to Fairfax, you'd be doing yourself a disservice by NOT getting some fajitas here. Who knew they sang to you w/ a sombrero on and then took your picture and made you a card???


We did some sightseeing downtown one day and my family mentioned they'd like to go see the Holocaust Museum. It's pretty amazing. Didn't realize until AFTER we'd been assigned an identity and taken the elevator ride to the top that it probably wasn't the best choice to take 2 kids three and under. After 10 minutes of Makenna asking Drew and me why that man was bald, why were they wearing all the same clothes, why that little girl was crying and how come those people are all laying on the floor, we had a reality check- busted out the M&M's, found a quiet, dark corner and put on a two-man circus until the rest of our crowd had seen what they came for. Lesson learned.






Whew- that was a long post with an absurd amount of pictures. If you're ever in D.C. around the holidays there are a million fun things to do. We'd be happy to be your tour guides, as long as you take us to Guapo's in return and kindly request that we leave the kids home for the Holocaust Museum. Loved this Christmas with my family! Definitely one of my favorites.