On Saturday, December 19, we had planned our annual family Christmas. We used to do Christmas Eve, but now with everyone's in-law families, and with the busyness of Christmas season, we have started gathering the week before Christmas. Given the Public Health Orders not to gather outside your household, we collectively decided to do a Zoom Christmas this year. Hey... it's 2020 right! We're just doing our part :) We discussed ways to make it still feel like Christmas, and thankfully everyone was on the same page and all things considered, it went as well as a Zoom Christmas could!
*This decision did not come lightly for me. I just got my sadness/grieving out of the way a couple weeks ago haha*
Throughout the week we'd been getting drop-offs of gifts for Christmas. This photo reflects JUST the gifts for this Gerber Christmas... It doesn't include our own gifts or the Kimber Christmas gifts. Zoiks!!!
We did some preparing of our own for Zoom Christmas, and I baked this beautiful loaf of sourdough! For sure the best one I've done yet! I did a lot of baking last week for family, so I finally got the hang of it. Hopefully it carries over this week when I start up again :)
Croquettes are a Christmas tradition for our family, but not everyone can just go and make croquettes, so Mom & Dad invites us over one by one to their place Saturday morning for a croquette bun. It was such a nice balance between Zoom Christmas and normal Christmas! Still got a little tease of seeing them, and some semblance of old tradition.
Look at her go! Haha. She makes me laugh
I was going to wrap it up as a gift under our tree, but couldn't resist getting Emilia in her matching MINI sweater with me. When I told her it said MINI, she definitely figured I meant Minnie Mouse, so she loves it of course haha.
At 3pm on Saturday we decided to do gift opening for the kids. They'd be fresh up from nap/quiet time, and it would give us all a chance to eat after, and them a chance to play! Dave set up his camera so we had a wide-angle shot of our whole living room. Everyone could watch the littles open and play with their gifts. A little snapshot into the chaos of our lives they can all look forward to one day haha.
Rocking the new jammies
The aftermath... Dom got that garbage truck from my parents - perfect Dom gift! Emilia got lots of art stuff and girly things which is right up her alley. Dom also got a light saber, which Emilia is equally drawn to. She's got pretty decent form too! Haha. Dom corrects my Star Wars knowledge all the time.
Everyone signed off Zoom, and they were supposed to be eating dinner. We have a "no toys at the table while we're eating" rule, and I quickly found them hiding under the table with some of their gifts. Oh well. They didn't eat dinner, but they did have fun!
Then it was time for grown up Christmas! We put the kids to bed and signed on. Everyone had some drinks and snacks and we got to work! Mom drew names out of a hat and organized who opened gifts when. Mom and Dad usually do gifts for everyone, and then the kids all team up for a gift for each of them. Additionally we all draw names and do a Secret Santa worth around $50 for another person. Love that tradition. Scott wrote a poem for Adam (his S.S.), and I think we should start that up next year. It was a Gerber tradition with all our cousins and uncles and aunts growing up, the writing poems. So fun.
I made cheesy artichoke dip which we ate with some sourdough bread and nice tortilla chips. This dip is to die for. I make it once a year tops, but boyyyyyyy is it delicious!
No pictures of it, but Mom organized a scavenger hunt for us, and there was a prize for first-fourth place. She set a timer for 5 minutes, and sent us all the list of 30ish items. We scrambled around our house for 5 minutes and rushed back to our seat as the buzzer went off. We all went through and showed/tallied our scores. Dave and I won by one point! If you know me, you know I love to play these kinds of games and I get shamelessly competitive/intense. I have been called "Monica" a few times. I'm not a sore loser because I hate conflict, but I do like to win and try hard haha.
After all the gifts were opened, and the scavenger hunt was done, we chatted for a bit and played some Quiplash, our current favorite online game. By the time we were all done and signing off it was past 11pm! That's about what it would have been for an in-person gathering too.
All in all, it was a special, memorable Christmas! Zoom makes it a little tricky to communicate, and a lot of little jokes and stuff get missed, but it served its purpose well.
No comments:
Post a Comment