A Holly Dolly Christmas

No, we didn't go to Dollywood. But our Christmas was much ado about a doll. More about that in a minute...

We tried to prep Maddie for the big day. We talked about Baby Jesus and we talked about Santa Claus and we even watched the Grinch on TV. I'm not sure any of it sank in, but she's still young and there is time.

I really wanted to incorporate some of Frank's German traditions into our holiday. I found a recipe for Spiced Mulled Wine (Gluehwein) and we enjoyed it with cheese fondue on Christmas Eve. Frank's family traditionally ate fondue for Christmas Eve dinner. His family also exchanged presents on Christmas Eve, while my family sometimes opened just one. We opened one present each on Christmas Eve this year.

The Gluehwein was amazingly good -- too good!

Maddie's favorite fondue-dipped food was the mushroom!!??

I have been planning for months to give Maddie her first doll. Frank made the doll a wooden bed and I made an attempt to make the doll a matching blanket, pillow, etc. We were pretty proud of our efforts and hope when she gets older, she'll want to pass it along to her little girl (or boy). We wrapped everything except the doll lying in the bed. We were hoping for a magical Christmas moment when she came into the room.



Her eyes lit up when she say the doll and she snatched it out of the doll bed and hugged it and smiled. I'm not sure who was more excited, me or her.

Prompting her to open the other wrapped presents was challenging. What could possibly be better than this bald shoeless wonder in pajamas?? But after a break for sweet potato pancakes and pecan butter -- YUM! -- we "helped" her open the rest of her presents.

Hippo and mouse hand puppets from Oma and Opa were a hit!

Feeding the baby doll.

It's never too early to learn banjo. Now Daddy and Maddie can play together.
Note the way cool doggie sweater!

A cool lap tray from Grandma and Grandaddy. No more lost toys while riding in the car!

Santa was good to all of us, as they say. We hung out at home all day and snacked and played. It was just a wonderful, memorable day. The first Christmas we have ever spent at our house.

On Dec. 26, we headed to see my parents and have our family Christmas with them. We had an awesome lunch followed by the gift exchange.

Maddie's Aunt Melissa styled her hair with too many pigtails to count!

Daddy even made Sillybub, a family favorite. A liquid and foam concoction that contains homemade wine, some kind of whipped topping and ...... I think that's all! He swears he didn't add the homemade wine until after he served Maddie. But from her smile and slurping, it was hard to know for sure....


On December 27, we went to Maddie's Great Grandma's house on our way out of town. We stayed longer than planned, but Maddie was having loads of fun and we don't see that side of the family often. Lots of family stopped by and the house filled up quickly.

Such a warm day that Maddie found her way outside, with Great Uncle Michael. I think he has a soft spot for her. They played in the leaves and played chase. She had a blast!

No child was harmed during the swinging, although we think Janet pulled her back!

Oh the lights.........!

Just a quick update on this past weekend's happenings: The first few days of Christmas week are going to be "parents-are-on-vacation-and-Maddie-is-still-going-to-daycare-so-Mommy-
and-Daddy-can-have-a-little-time-to-themselves" week. The prelude to this much-anticipated week started off right with a burger dinner at Red Robin with Robin, Waylon and Noah Friday night. Both kids were sitting on booster seats and kept falling over to the side which was funny at first but quickly lost its luster after a few times. Combined with repeated dive expeditions under the table to rescue lost crayons it made for a somewhat, ummm, "active" dinner.

Saturday greeted us with some rain but we stuck to our plans to drive to Meadow in the afternoon to meet Stella Dot and her parents, Amy and Grant, for a good old-fashioned country dinner ...oh and see THE Christmas lights display. Unlike our lonely visit last year, the one and only "Meadow Restaurant" (yep, there's only one in that little hamlet) seemed to be quite popular with both locals and Christmas light-seekers alike resulting in an hour-long wait at 4:30 in the afternoon!!??? Nonetheless, the first glance of the dessert buffet quickly calmed down the female contingent of our little expedition while their male counterparts got equally excited about the fried meat offerings. The kids? Well, they were being good and eating their veggies -- followed by massive amounts of cake. Hey, why should they do without? Plus, Maddie kept sticking her fingers in every concoction we returned with: coconut cake, banana pudding, chocolate sheet cake. Oh yeah!

Mo' cake!

Discussing the merits of chocolate cream pie vs banana pudding.

It was pouring rain when we left with our bellies as full as jolly old Saint Nick's. But we pressed onward, waiting in a long line of light-seekers to view what we'd been promising the kids -- lights, lights and more lights. We managed to get our tickets fairly quickly and soon we all were on the choo-choo train and rumbling through the light displays. The girls had a great time and we all enjoyed ourselves. "There's an igloo with a duck...uh, no it's a penguin!" "Look girls, it's a racing car. There's a reindeer, and another."

Waiting for the Choo-choo train

Ooooohh the lights!

Mo' lights!

Lights can be tiresome!

We waved "bye-bye" to the choo-choo and headed to the general store for ice-cold sodas (that's pop to some of you) and some bulk candy. A fun-filled Christmas trip to be sure. Amy and Grant vow they'll be back to Meadow Restaurant with family in tow. We're still dreaming about the banana pudding and layer cake.

On Sunday, mommy was trying to teach Maddie how to catch grapes with her mouth. It almost worked. Check out the grape flying in front of the fridge!

I'm gonna get you!

Almost gotcha!

Squeaky fiddles and interpretive dance....a musical journey from Appalachia to Down Under

This is Frank blogging while mourning the end of my one week vacation.

Kudos to you if you can figure out what the heck this blog title is about......but we'll get there!

Some might and some might not know that for the last three years I have been compulsively obsessed with Old-time banjo and Old-time music in general. For those not familiar with the genre, accurate definitions would be: OT music: "Squeaky fiddle music from way back when", and OT banjo:"Follows the squeaky fiddle."

For reasons unbeknownst to me, the organizers of our departmental christmas party requested a few tunes during the festivities. At this point it was not entirely clear whether they were looking for a quick and brutal way to end the party and clear the place or whether they were foolishly considering serious entertainment. Turns out they were quite serious. I agreed to the task after recruiting Charley P., an accomplished fiddler, to join me in this endeavor to embarrass myself...he happily agreed.

The party started at noon and we waited a little while until everyone had had at least a couple of drinks to ease the pain, before playing a small selection of mostly appalachian fiddle tunes. Quite interesting experience: Roaring applause after the first two tunes, then the background noise level picked up to the point where we could barely hear our instruments....the novelty had waned and people got back to discussing more important issues such as how to not dry out the turkey this year and whether feathery fluffy pink slippers are the ideal gift for not-so-loved in-laws...but I digress.

Charley assures me that the same thing happens to him every time he plays at one of these parties...so I'll take his word for it. I was actually pretty pleased with the musical side of things and if you dare, you can listen to one of our tunes. The background noise illustrates how captivated our audience was at this time.......sigh!

Soldiers Joy

At home we were treated to Maddie in a super mood. It was already getting a little bit late and we were about to let her wind down before bath time when all of a sudden she announced that she was ready for some dancing. Ok, who are we to spoil the fun?
Before the dance we had to practice a bit for future photo ops:

Maddie, say "Cheese"

Then on to some warm up tickles:

Maddie says: "Mo' tickles"

And at last, the grand finale....Ladies and gentlemen hold your breath and enjoy interpretive dance moves accompanied by the Wiggles, Australia's kid's music sensation: