I often wonder whether our 13 year old son still believes in Santa Claus or not. It seems highly unlikely, especially given the precocious nature of his school. His sister is convinced it’s all a manipulative play, and she is probably correct. But it’s certainly fun to have a child who is still writing Santa a letter about what he wants for Christmas (a new bike this year), leaving a note for Santa with his chocolate chip cookies and milk and carrots for the reindeer, and waking up an hour before he’s allowed downstairs to see if Santa came. Manipulative it may be, but it’s a magnificent play.

After opening the plethora of gifts (and drones seemed to be the theme of gift-giving this year), we had extended family over and had an early Christmas dinner. (Said extended family has a 9 month old.) (As a further aside, our 16 year old daughter was TOTALLY grossed out by the 9 month old baby, who at this stage, is nothing but a glorified food processor who eats (messily), spits up (messily) and poops (messily and grossly)).

The Christmas dinner menu was as follows:

• parsnip soup (served with gougeres)
• 72 hour short ribs (which were actually 60 hour short ribs because we forgot to do them Monday night—oops)
• brussel sprouts with bacon
• mashed potatoes
• bûche de noel

Christmas dinner 2014

a “before” photo of the buche de Noel

the final product

Afterwards, we all sat around in a food coma before going to bed. The very definition of a fabulous Christmas! Hope yours was Merry as well!