Happy Holidays!

Hope you all have a good Christmas!

We spent Christmas eve at Arya restaurant. It is a Mediterranean and Italian restaurant. I'm surprised the restaurant opens on Christmas Eve. Everything we ordered are delicious.   After that, we took a stroll at Christmas in the park  downtown San Jose.  We wanted to go for sometime, but the weather hasn't been good.  But Christmas evening is perfect.  It was a mild evening.  The kids enjoyed looking at different Christmas displays and the rides.

After both kids crash in their bed, I spend the rest of the evening wrapping Santa's present for the kids.

My daughter was the first one up on Christmas.  She was overly exited to see if the old man from the North Pole made it through our chimney the night before.  She clamed that she didn't hear the jingles last night and was disappointed not seeing the present.   "Really? Let's see.  If you don't get it, that means you are on the naughty list."  I then offer to look for her Santa present with her under the tree and was really "surprised" to see two new boxes that sign with Santa.

My daughter's face lit up but still a bit suspicious, " How come Santa use the same wrapping paper as ours?"

"Santa must know we had this wrapping paper before and think we like this." My daughter always has great eyes for details.  She asked the question about wrapping paper last year, that is why this year  I deliberately used last year's left over wrapping paper for those presents so she wouldn't question me and yet she remember the old wrapping paper after not seeing it for the whole year.  Luckily my reasoning convinced her. After all, Santa is very magical.

So what did Santa get her? A book of course, just as she wished for in her letter.

And for my son,  let's just say the stuff rocket handwriting looks like a stump rocket and Santa misread it.

And something for me as well :-)

 Well, to be honest I did not wear this ensemble for the entire day.  I wore it probably for 2 hours. After the kids finish tearing up all the gifts from various teachers, friends and family and we trying to take pictures of the whole family without at least one of kid making some strange face or look away, it is well pass noon.  All the remaining restaurant that are open on Christmas day are full when we call.  They won't even give an estimate when it will have empty seat.  So I put on my oversize sweat shirt from college days and made grill green beans with garlic and stir fried beef with onions in a record 45 minutes.  (B.T.W, highly recommending Wusthof Classic Ikon Santoku Knife, 5" for slicing the beef thin. )  I get to take the nap with my daughter in the afternoon.  The whole family watched How to Train your dragon together.  As usual, my son fall sleep and my daughter is full of question after the movie.  What a day!

Happy Holidays!