Merry Christmas

Here are a few highlights of our Christmas festivities...

Christmas Eve was spent at the Costa's house (Debbie's in-laws). Ose flew into SLC on Tuesday night, he'd been out of town for business. Viv (my mom's sister), Chris (my aunt's husband), Bruno (my cousin), and Renan (Bruno's best friend since he was 3 yrs old) came in on Christmas Eve. They flew in from Chicago and given all the flights that were cancelled and delayed because of the weather, it was surprising that their flight was only delayed an hour. Of course, that meant they didn't come in until close to midnight which meant we were all up until really late but that's traditional for a Brazilian Christmas anyway.  

Christmas "morning," Ose made breakfast for everyone. Here are a few pictures of the boys making and eating breakfast and... being boys... 

A good portion of the rest of the day was spent in the kitchen making dinner. Debs and I got a little carried away when we planned our menu which meant a lot of hours in the kitchen. I'm a true believer in dining out and probably spent more time in the kitchen yesterday than I have all year. Thank goodness for good company in the kitchen... Debs and I do have a fun time cooking :). And if I might say so myself, we did a fabulous job.

Debs also planned and coordinated a really cool Secret Santa. She found a website where everyone who is going to participate in the Secret Santa registers and then randomly gets assigned a name and then sent an e-mail with who their Secret Santa is... 

So here's how our Secret Santa exchange went. We decided that I would start:

Quel: (Looks straight at Dani) A minha amiga secreta é muito linda... (My secret santa is very pretty). A minha amiga secreta é bem pequeninha... (My secret santa is very little). A minha amiga secreta é uma princesa... (My secret santa is a princess).

 

Dani: (Points to self) Mim? (Grammatically incorrect version of "me")

 

And, as the best aunt ever... I got her the Cinderella Laptop she had been eyeing (even after the tragic laptop incident from a few weeks ago...).

Then it was Dani's turn to give her secret santa the gift she'd bought.  Dani comes and sits next to me by the Christmas tree...

Debbie: Dani quem é a tua amiga secreta? (Dani, who is your Secret Santa)

Dani smiles and points...

Quel: EU?!?!? (Grammatically correct version of "me")

Dani wanted to buy me a hat but Debbie and Dani didn't find one they really liked... so I got a Banana Republic gift card (my favorite store) instead and a BEAUTIFUL drawing from Dani. :)

Here are some other fun secret santa moments...

Chris got Viv and managed to keep it a surprise. Another one of those ME?!?!?! moments!

Bruno got Sam and gave him a gift that reinforced Sam's belief that he IS  "The Man."

Viv got Dan, I found out and convinced Viv to play a joke on Dan. Here's the story... Dan majored in History, his emphasis and passion is the Civil War. Those who know Dan know this about him (even those who don't know him very well). When people have to get Dan a gift they go to a bookstore and look for Civil War books. They pass by the bargain book section and find a book called "Strange and Fascinating Facts of the Civil War." Dan's gotten this book as a gift a good 4 or 5 times. People are always really excited to give it to him... Dan's always pretends to be really excited to receive it. Last Christmas I took the book off the bookshelf and wrapped it for Dan and stuck it under the Christmas tree (no worries, I put a gift card in it too). This Christmas, I took the book off the bookshelf and stuck it in a gift bag and had Viv give it to Dan: One Civil War book from the bookshelf $0; one gift back I found in the hall closet $0; Dan's expression as he opens the gift and thinks he's gotten the same gift for the 6th time... PRICELESS :)

  

Yeah, I was pretty proud of myself ... :)

So here's the summary:

I got Dani, Dani got me, Debbie got Bruno, Bruno got Sam, Sam got Moises, Moises got Ose, Ose got Debbie (there are no good pictures but Ose gave Debs a "big brother little sister date" and is taking Debs out to dinner and then to Body Worlds - she's been dying to go and was REALLY excited about her gift), Dan got Renan, Renan got Chris (and forgot Chris's gift in Chicago), Chris got Viv, and Viv got Dan.

And, of course, what's Christmas without a little Rock Band? :) 

Happy Holidays to Everyone!!!!