the tj chronicles 77

the xmas edition!

and what a christmas it was, hoo boy!
it started, on friday, with prepping gifts, or, getting rid of a ton of bananas that were doing an #occupyourfreezer:

yes, you are seeing 20 small and 2 large loaves of banana bread, and how they looked after baking, a nice golden brown:

it almost looked too good to give away, but we are not about the #occupythegrinch:

on friday night, after travis went to bed we also set up the tree. typically we would set it up the day after thanksgiving, but since the cats are into the bottom branches of the tree, even though it is a fake, plastic tree, and the skirt we thought we'd wait a little longer. and of course, there's travis who has a difficult time understanding the word "no" and its meaning.
this is the top of the tree:

the tree has a pretty white bow:

lookit, it is i:

you knew i had to do it, an abstraction of the lights in our christmas tree:

this is the entire tree, minus one ball ... yes, travis got to it; he took one off of a tree branch, held it up and then tested to see if it would bounce when dropped onto the hardwood floor ... guess what, it didn't:

a couple of packages of banana bread and a small jar of christmas spices:

the foil wrap with the red ribbon looked pretty nice:

travis does not understand the concept of christmas, yet, so he was oblivious to all that was going on around him. here he is playing with a tonka toy train, which he calls thomas:

here he is banging thomas on the desk:

and playing quietly on the floor, finally giving me one of his great smiles after me goading him for hours:

after christmas eve's dinner we and our guests, chris and sam from carrolton, spent some time in the kitchen talking about all sorts of stuff:

another abstraction of the christmas tree lights:

one of our prized christmas tree balls, a clear ball with a rainbow ribbon inside of it:

travis woke up at 8.30 on christmas day and instead of taking him down, i made pepper make his bottle and took him in our bathroom after i got him up and changed/cleaned him. denise was still sleeping after staying up into the wee hours of the morning and i knew that if travis would see the presents under the tree he would be unstoppable.
after about an hour we had to take travis downstairs and as soon as he saw the boxes he was over it like white on rice.
the first thing he saw was a cars puzzle of lightning mcqueen:

this is the rest of the christmas packages:

denise, pepper and travis opening their gifts:

for travis there was the cars puzzle, a curious george game set and a cars board game:

this is the cars puzzle completed (travis helped pepper complete it):

travis leafing through the curious george numbers book:

denise seeing santa's present, a dvd collection box of all of christopher titus' 4 stand-up routines, signed by the man himself:

travis also got a cars/lightning mcqueen tent:

pepper got books and a new nintendo ds with a game, a hello kitty nail kit and some other stuff. denise also got house slippers, which are photobombing this shot:

the tent set up:

travis coming out of the tent, after chasing his big sister through it:

but as far as travis goes, the big winner of this year's christmas was the train set:

it sings the alphabet, it has an elephant up front, you can shoot blocks into the carriage on which you can sit, clearly this thing is the awesomesauce:

driving his train past the cars tent:

saying "train":

and back on the train again:

and riding around on it:

breakfast was on request, because it's christmas:

travis kept on playing with his train:

it really is a nice piece of work, very intricate, even though it's probably made in china ... don't mention it to #ows or the 99% ;-)

travis showing me the block with the double-u/worm on it:

and like with all of his toys, he gets close to the surface on which it sits to observe how it works:

dinner preparation started around 11am with the bird (duck? duck? goose!) being prepped for the oven, after more than a day brining in a cooler in the garage. below is the stuffing for the goose:

sweet potatoes boiling in the foreground:

braising red cabbage in the background:

steaming brussel sprouts off to the side:

and this is the goose cooking in the oven:

(i should have cleaned the inside of the oven window, i guess ...)
watching titus episodes in anticipation of dinner:

travis still/again playing with his train, as he has been pretty much all day:

dinner table, set:

the goose (and i know it looks like it is charred, but that's how goose cooks) and underneath the skin it was pretty tender:

the dinner table with the plates loaded with sprouts on red cabbage (green on red, get it?!), a bowl of mashed & creamed sweet potatoes and sliced goose breast and some wings:

here we are digging in, even travis helped himself eat:

although everything tasted very nice, everyone's favorite, i think, were the mashed taters:

most of us cleaned up our plates:

after dinner we watched some more titus before our guests, chris and sam (remember?) headed back home.
my christmas was complete by knowing that travis, denise, pepper and in their own way, campion and ellen, had a nice christmas at our weird place. naturally, i got presents too, but for me the biggest present was to see travis completely geeking out over his train.
and now i am geeking out over this blog, since i am actually publishing it before i said i would ... because i am *that* much of a geek :P

sunday, december 25, 2011