bryan, karyn, hannie and i drove down to south dakota on christmas eve – despite really nasty winter weather.

my mom was thawing a ham for the family meal on christmas day. it was my brother’s ham, so it was like he was there with us. right?

but for christmas eve dinner, mom made two giant vats of soup – chicken noodle and split pea. yum!

hannie likes bread best.

as we finished eating dinner, dad got a phone call from a friend. “looks like someone hit the front side of your van…” he said. dad looked outside, and though there was no damage to the van, there was a very large package next to it. bryan and i ran outside to bring it in…

a 55″ lcd hdtv! dad was stunned and hannie was very excited.

bryan, dad and i went to wal-mart to get a new entertainment center for the tv, while karyn, mom and hannie frosted and sprinkled cookies.

hannie had an icing mustache, which was pretty funny, but she wouldn’t let me take a photo of it.

so, that was a pretty exciting night.

we also had a turducken for christmas day lunch. this was very exciting for everyone involved, i assure you.

hannie got really excited about opening presents, so she got to open her stocking right away. i also let her open a small present i got for her.

so many presents for hannie!

but there were a few presents for the rest of us, too. fun!

jason gave me a wii for christmas and now i have a new game to play on it – epic mickey! i started the other night. it’s kinda dark, but will be fun once i get into it, i think.

karyn got her very own masher! wahoo!

“hannie, are you silly?” “yeah!”

mom and dad got a new camera for their trip to taiwan next month! take lots and lots of photos, okay, guys?!

karyn disguised my last gift (which hannie helped me open) by wrapping it with a few random other things inside at least 5 different bags and boxes – it was a new ipod nano!

we went to uncle tom’s & aunt kim’s for our first christmas day meal. grampa bob brought some “mystery wine” he made at home. it was pretty tasty!

but kim opted for poinsettia cocktails instead.

newest christmas tradition: cousin micheal’s robotic santa.

tur! duck! hen!

then it was time for the always hilarious dice game.

shih tzu party central.

cousin jenny and jeremy got married this year. they still seem to like each other, so that’s good, ‘eh?

cousin jon got a pregnancy test. let’s hope it negative!

hannie got a whoopee cushion. i have a video, which i’ll upload to youtube… someday…

all tuckered out! i guess that was a pretty exhausting gift exchange for the puppies.

oh, wait! one more gift for jeremy from cousin micheal!

… it’s an… alligator?

and for another oddity, steve made a christmas poo. but it was delish!

for dinner, we joined aunt deb, gramma d, and cousin brock just down the road.

gramma d got just a few more owls for christmas.

good thing hannie was around to help gramma open all of her presents!

we went home around 9pm. sioux falls was a-glow as we left it.

we had to get on the road back to minneapolis by noon, but i was glad that kelsey and aurora could come over before we started packing up.

can you imagine what life would be like to be that adorable? those eyes! she’s such a sweet little babe.

hannie was a little unsure about not being the center of attention, but she hung around anyway.

thanks for the visit, ladies!

when we got back to minneapolis, jason picked me up and whisked me away to st. paul for that night’s wild game. i won the tickets through email bingo at work! so even though the wild lost (unfortunately), we still had a pretty good time.

the final score was 1-4. 🙁

when i finally got home after the game, santa had brought jason another, special gift to give to me. santa sure is a sweet, generous guy!

i’m feeling very blessed this holiday season – lots of great family, a wonderful boyfriend, and really super friends. i’m currently in indianola, iowa, with jason’s family – waiting for 2011 at midnight and a few more christmas festivities tomorrow. i hope you’re having an equally fantastic holiday season, too.

happy new year!