New Year's Eve 2008

As I wait for my guests to arrive, I reflect back on 2008 and I realize: It's time for a list!

Top moments of 2008:

Making the audition CD with my choir and realizing: I need to go to Italy with these people!

Catching ten-pound catfish any time we want. And eating them up!

My 20th wedding anniversary.

Our fantabulous trip to Arizona, Nevada, Mexico and California, too many good times to list, and so fun with my aunt Lynne and Eduardo and their kids.

Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve Mass, Christmas Morning and Christmas Day. Wowza... what a party!

My mom and my aunt, kick-ass party girls coming to Italy with me.

Being blessed with a job I love, and still being proud to sign "RN" behind my name.

Tom Petty in concert, especially "Last Dance with Mary Jane"

My birthday surprises from Paul, what a good time it was.

Being invited on an Alaskan cruise with the most wonderful family in the world.

Pulling off a successful "Taste of Italy" dinner with my dear friends.

Decorating the Christmas tree with Lily, hearing her say "That's Booootiful" about every ornament.

Laughing my silly butt off with the girls at work, playing jokes on the boss.

Rubber chicken pranks.

Standing on the balcony in Mexico overlooking the sea and feeling the cool breeze.

Waking up on a December morning to see the most amazing gingerbread ship.

All in all, it was a pretty damn good year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR MY FRIENDS! I LOVE YOU!

By Popular Demand

Here are a couple of views of our Gingerbread House 2008. If you look closely, you'll see that our gingerbread house is not a gingerbread house, but is a gingerbread cruise ship. We decided to go with the cruise ship theme because we are going to take an Alaskan cruise in August with the family...all 33 of us. I'm not sure if you can tell, but the ship is the Diamond Princess, which is the ship on which we're booked. The kids have some very humorous and creative touches: the little gingerbread man on the inner-tube behind the ship, the gingerbread man hanging off the balcony, and a little gingerbread man at the bow of the ship, a la "Titanic." Speaking of the Titanic, there's a sunken ship of the same name under the candy water. The word "Titanic" is spelled out in licorice. On land, there is a little gingerbread man mushing with a candy-cane dog sled, (dogs portrayed by gummy bears.) David is hoping that we take the optional dog sled tour. There's a swimming pool on top of the ship with a diving board and a gingerbread man swimming in the pool. We're afraid it might be a little cold to swim up in Alaska, but one never knows. If you look closely at the candy water, you can see lots of fish, and one whale breaching in the second view. The whale's water spout is made out of a blue Twizzler.

We've gotten lots of questions about the "water." It was made out of sugar, corn syrup and food coloring. You have to boil it at a certain temperature for about 10 minutes before you pour it. It hardens to hard-candy consistency.

Giving proper credit where it is due, my role in this creation was limited to making the royal icing, buying ingredients for the dough, and purchasing some of the candy. Paul and the kids did all the construction and decoration, which took a total of four days. The finishing touches were made at about 2:00 in the morning before our family progressive dinner. We wanted all the family members going on the cruise to see the gingerbread ship at our holiday progressive dinner. It was a very big success!

Italy 2009

My mom and my Aunt Pam might come to Italy with me in April!

I hope, I hope, I hope!

Holiday Magic

Oh what a Christmas it was! I wish I could bottle it up and re-live it whenever I'm bitching about all the hard work that goes into the holiday.

We started on Christmas Eve at 5:00 or so. My family gathers, all 30+ of us, at the home of Paul's parents. There is steak soup and chili, tamales, egg nog, BBQ salmon, and mountains of appetizers and desserts. The ritual is preordained: gather, greet, eat, Santa comes with gifts for the kids (three per child), children exchange gifts, and finally the adults exchange gifts. Afterwards, everybody visits and plays until about 11:00. I leave to sing at the midnight mass, which starts at 10:30, and afterwards I get home at about 1:00 in the morning.

This year Paul had most of the Christmas morning work done by the time I got home from church, so I only had to help Santa stuff a few stockings and I was in bed by 2:00.

Children wake at about 8:00 on Christmas morning and we have our family gifts around the tree. It was perfect this year, with the kids old enough to wait so that I could watch them open each gift.

My family comes over at 10:00...coffee, breakfast and a few more gifts are exchanged. They leave at about 12:30 and we have 30 minutes to clean up the vornado of wrapping paper and dirty dishes before we leave for Christmas dinner. We gather at my in-law's for ham, turkey, potatoes, cranberries and all the rest. This year we met at my sister and brother-in-law's new home. It was so, so much fun. They have a fabulous entertainment set-up with a finished basement that has a wet bar and all kind of games. Pool, foosball, cards, video games, you name it. We stayed and partied and laughed our silly butts off until about 11:30. By midnight on Christmas night it was all a memory, but such a good one this year.

Every year is a good one, but this was one of the best.

My dear friend S. is going through a divorce, and this is her first Christmas Eve without the kids. She came to our Christmas Eve celebration. I was so proud of my in-laws for welcoming her and helping her to celebrate at such a difficult time.

Wrapping it up: The top five highlights of Christmas 2008:


1. Our beautiful, beautiful Christmas Eve mass, the best part of which comes at the end, at the first moment of Christmas morning when the choir stands around the encircling upper balcony of the church with candles, and we all sing Silent Night in the darkened church.

2. My talented sister-in-law Kristi surprised my mother-in-law with a beautiful hand-made quilt.

3. The very, very thoughtful gifts from my sweet David. Each one was selected with so much care. A month before Christmas David went on eBay to find a Bo Jackson rookie card for his little brother who collects baseball cards and is a big Bo Jackson fan.

4. The care and consideration that went into the gifts my children bought or made for each other. Anna made a home-made cookbook for her little sister Kathleen who loves to cook. Michael made a great Chief's ornament for his Dad.

5. The magnificent cruise-ship gingerbread house that we made in honor of the upcoming family cruise next August. There were so many humorous touches, like the sunken Titanic under the candy-water, and the gingerbread man tubing off the back of the ship. It was an amazing effort.