Christmas in ABQ

After wrapping up the semester, we headed to ABQ for a week to spend Christmas with my family. Just as we were getting ready to leave, the COVID situation took another turn for the worse, but we checked CDC guidelines, took rapid tests (which were negative), and put on our good masks to travel anyway. We certainly had some anxiety about this--not wanting to bring the virus with us or pick it up anywhere along the way, but we seem to have avoided any issues. And it was, as always, lovely to have the time with family and eat all of the delicious NM food! 

We stayed at Grandma's house, which is so luxurious with a guest wing all to ourselves and a king sized bed! We managed to eat lots of good local food, including breakfast burritos from several of our favorite places: Weck's, Blake's, and Twisters. We also picked up pizza from Dion's our first night and takeout from Garduños another night (the first time we've had takeout there, and it worked out really well!). There were also many excellent home-cooked meals, including spaghetti at Grandma's and Christmas brunch and dinner at Mom and Dad's. And most important, we spent time with everyone: Grandma, Mom, Dad, Grandpa Mike, Julie, Ben, and Daniel. Not surprisingly, having a one year old in the mix changes things, but Daniel is so fun! He's curious about everything, and happy to play with whoever is around. He's not talking or walking quite yet, but definitely close! 

Here are some photo highlights from the week:

me posing with a reindeer topiary
on a layover at the Denver airport

Grandma reading Daniel a book

Grandma and Julie at the St. James Tea Room

me and Mom at the St. James Tea Room

the tea menu, themed around 
Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"

the tea tray--everything was delicious!

my plate of savories

my plate of sweets
(I forgot to snap a pic of the scones!)

group photo after tea--it was such a treat!
thanks, Mom!

me reading to Daniel

the family room tree at Mom & Dad's

the living room tree at Mom & Dad's,
and SO MANY presents!

some lights in the neighborhood on Christmas Eve

our stockings on Christmas

Christmas brunch--and the most
beautiful Polish stoneware dishes

Papa and Nana help Daniel with his stocking

in case you missed it--there were so many presents!

Daniel helping Nana open her gift

Julie reading a new book to Daniel

Mom reading a new book to Daniel
(we're all in agreement about how 
much we love reading! :-)

Ben helping Daniel open a gift with
Grandpa Mike looking on

Daniel got an early start opening this 
present to me, from him ;-)

Daniel enjoying one of his new Dr.
Seuss books (from Grounds for Thought)

Nana and Daniel: how cute are these two?

the table set for Christmas dinner

my plate--such good food! 

more reading time with Daniel--a 
new pop-up book

watching Julie read Daniel the book I got them

after over a day covered in clouds, we finally see
the snow-covered mountains on our evening walk

Uncle Mark hanging out with Daniel in the kitchen

the desert view to the west
 from Grandma's driveway

the mountains as we walked east from Grandma's

Daniel showing Uncle Mark all the things

group photo: Zerbys and Cooks

Aunt Amy & Uncle Mark with Daniel
(what you can't see here is how ridiculous the other
adults are acting behind the camera to try to get Daniel
to look over there and smile...but it worked on me! :-)

We're truly blessed to have generous, loving families (on both sides!). Thanks to Grandma for your hospitality, and to Mom and Dad for coordinating and hosting so many gatherings. Thanks to the Zerbys for carving out so much time to spend with us on our short visit. Thanks to Grandpa Mike for hanging out and sending us home with more beautiful handiwork! We love you all. :-)

Christmas in BG

It's our first Christmas season in our new house! It's been so fun to decorate the new place and enjoy some old and new Christmas traditions. Here are some highlights:

Our favorite walking route after dark in our new neighborhood takes us through downtown BG, which has very festive decorations. 

Mark on Main St by a decorated lamppost

the city tree at the public library

the beautiful tree in Juniper

decorated planters plus shop windows across the street

fun lights behind a bench

Here are the Christmas decorations at our own house:

tree with our new topper and white lights

nativity scene (from Uganda, made of banana leaves)

a small tree and presents on the kitchen table
(known as the "Barbie tree" because my mom
made it years and years ago for the Barbies!)

a few more small decorations on the kitchen cart

the view of dining/living from the laundry doorway

Hallmark tree in my office

close up of Hallmark tree in the dark

battery powered lights on the porch 
(we bought these last year, and we're glad to have
them still, since we don't have any exterior outlets!)

the lights show better from our door
because the street light washes them out a bit

our stockings, hung under the TV

new lights we wrapped around the inside living
room windows--it's such a perfect spot for the tree!

another view of the tree, with colored lights on.
also notice the stained glass candles on either side
(we had the one on the right, and we asked
Grandpa Mike if he had another--he did!)

Grandpa Mike also made us one more--it's
above the kitchen sink, and I love the color!

We've also done some holiday baking, and it's been really fun to spend more time in our lovely kitchen. It's a bit crowded for two of us to work in there at the same time, but it's actually a perfect set up for one person--everything so easily within reach. And definitely more counterspace than our apartment! 

Christmas baking round one:
Special K cookies (which I goofed up with
a terribly crumbly base...so annoying),
chocolate crinkles, Russian tea cakes.

Mark made M&M cookies--so festive!

one of each cookie...enjoyed
from my spot on the couch

more Christmas cookies--for my colleagues in the
T/ESOL program (two new recipes: chocolate molasses, 
cranberry almond, and some chocolate crinkles).

 

another round of baking, after our ABQ trip: 
Special K cookies (round two), two-tone brownies
(a NYE tradition), and peanut butter fudge. 
Also a plate of mostly-eaten cookies dropped
off by friends while we were away :-)

And we finally went up to Toledo this year to check out the Christmas lights at the Zoo. I've been curious for years, but always shied away from the price tag. Mark cleverly discovered that a zoo membership includes unlimited visits to the lights, plus regular zoo admissions, free parking, and other perks, for a year, so we decided that was actually a pretty good value. So far, we've been to the lights twice together, and Mark took his friend Olivia, so we've gotten lots of use from the membership already! They have some of the buildings open, so we took a quick walk through the reptile area and the aquarium, and we spotted a few animals, too (white wolves, a bobcat, a rhino, and a tiger). We'll go back once it warms up to do a proper tour of the animals, and if we can remember, we should be able to see next year's lights in November before our membership expires. 

these lights dance along with music

same tree--it's really big!

me with a Toledo Zoo sign and lights

an impressive holiday railroad display!
(this made me think of Pop-Pop, of course)

me with the sign in the entrance courtyard

We also had a chance to open gifts on Skype with Mark's parents (with cameo appearances by Katie and Kaden). Mom shipped the gifts here, so Mark wrapped mine and I wrapped his. 

so many presents under our tree!

the aftermath!
(Mark got it cleaned up very quickly after this pic :-) 

A few days later, we continued our new tradition from last year of exchanging stockings just the two of us. I had so much fun picking things out for Mark, and enjoyed what he picked out for me, too! 

our two stockings on the couch

my gifts from Mark--the hand
cream is just what I needed!

So that's been Christmas in BG! Mixed in with all of that holiday cheer was a demanding end-of-semester, with me doing a lot of grading from Thanksgiving right up until the end. I posted my grades on Monday, 12/20, then we flew to ABQ for our Christmas visit the next day. More to come about that trip in the next post!