Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everybody! I hope everyone had as nice a Christmas as we did. With speakphones on both ends, it's like we were there with y'all on Christmas morning.....well, almost...

Anyways, so I'm gonna back up to Christmas Eve and give a full recap of our festively fun holiday. Mags and I decided to go with hors d'oeuvres instead of a full dinner, which I think was a good call. You can see the spread below. We picked our way through Christmas Eve and it was delicious. Maggie then watched The Bishop's Wife, whilst I crashed on the couch. Naps are great, especially when you're expected to go to Midnight (11pm) Mass.

For those of you keeping score at home, we have shrimp,
artichoke dip, cheese and crackers, and sausage balls.

Maggie and I then headed off to Midnight Mass at our new parish, St. Matthias. It was packed out, and a good Mass as well. No complaints, although our priest's homily focused on the whole light/dark dichotomy in the gospel by explaining Lord of the Rings. While interesting, I felt bad for those not well versed in the ways of the Rings. Post-church, we scurried to our car, where a nice sheet of ice had formed on all the windows, and proceeded home to bed.

I should note here that while it did not snow on Christmas, I think having two feet of snow already on the ground constitutes a white Christmas. So there.

We woke up on Christmas morning at around 9 something. What's the rush, right? We had all day to open presents; we might as well be well rested. And then, the present opening began, starting with stockings. Now I won't go into great detail about the Christmas gifts so as not to bore you all, but here are Maggie and I with our Christmas loot.

I gotta say, we made out like bandits. Thanks everybody for making our first "alone" Christmas not feel so alone. After leaving a decent amount of time to play with our presents, (I mean, this is Christmas after all), we set up the Wii we received from Mags' parents. One word: awesome. I have to say, though, that Maggie is better than me at every single one of the Wii games. It's embarassing. And that's no knock on Mags, but seriously, can't I be better at at least one game? Well anyways, here is Maggie kicking butt on Wii boxing.

Here, she is executing what I have dubbed the Crouching Maggie, or alternatively, the JabberMaggie. She crouches into the position above and lets loose a flurry of knee-high punches that leaves her opponent dazed and occassionally unconscious. It's a fearsome sight to behold.

After Wii-ing it up for a bit, we went sledding on Dead Mans' Hill because, let's be honest, what better way is there to celebrate our Lord's birth than careening wildly out of control down an icy cliff? That's what I thought. But, having two feet of snow down makes climbing said cliff incredibly exhausting, so we only sledded for about 30-45 minutes and then headed home.

Christmas dinner was also fantastic. Maggie made two lovely cornish hens (pictured below), I made some twice baked potatoes, and Mags finished it off with some sauteed zucchini and rolls. Delicious. Once we regained the ability to move, we Wii-ed it up some more and called it a day.

My, what a festive apron she's wearing!

So there you have it. The first Larche/Marcilliat family Christmas celebrated in Wisconsin. Ta-da!