Christmas: the California edition

 Jacob and I, along with my sister Heather and her husband, Dustin, had the good fortune of being able to drive to California to visit my family for Christmas. And it was glorious. Allow me to display about a million pictures, with minimal text, to record our adventures.

One night after dinner we decided to have a friendly competition to see who could suction a cup to their face the longest. Dustin was the ultimate champion by a landslide. Heather was able to stop laughing long enough to snap a picture, but that's about it. For some reason, my mom declined to participate.

I tried on Heather's glasses and marveled at how much more clearly I could see! She then proceeded to play "optometrist" by holding up various books from about ten feet away and having me try to read the title and author first without glasses, and then with them on. Her very professional diagnosis is that I need to get my eyes checked out for reals. And this is probably true.

One day we hit up the beach before going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The younger husbands explored the seaweed and a dead seal, while the wives (and my dad) admired the ocean from a distance. Emily, as is tradition, took off her shoes and socks and thus needed to be carried by all three of the men at varying times back to the car (lest she get sand in her socks before cleaning her feet off).

The aquarium was really fun. We didn't get a ton of pictures, but the jellyfish, otters, and sea horses were definitely some of my favorites.

One night Robyn, my good friend from high school (and before, but high school is when we really became close) came over and helped make delicious cookies and our traditional candy trains with us. My sisters and I have been making candy trains for years, and they've evolved to include elaborate themes. This year my mom purchased enough candy for each family unit to make their own. (You may want to click on the pictures to enlarge them, because they're really quite fabulous.)

Heather and Dustin with their tropical island themed candy train, complete with volcano and palm trees.

Our "Elf" themed candy train, with the seven layers of the candy cane forest, sea of swirly twirly gumdrops, and the Lincoln tunnel.

Emily and her "Occupy Train" train.

For years my mom has put on a "Bethlehem dinner" on Christmas Eve. We eat on blankets on the floor, and we eat what shepherds in Bethlehem may have eaten the night Christ was born: "Shepherd's Stew," crackers and cheese, olives, dried apricots, and so forth. We used to wear bathrobes and towels on our heads to try to dress up like shepherds, but the costumes were cumbersome while eating and when we grew up we kind of hated it. But the dinner remains!

My expression is clearly saying, "Dad, I'm in the midst of chewing. Don't you dare snap that phot . . . Oh."

Naturally, we have about half a million pictures of the family opening presents, but I'll just let you imagine our expressions of delight instead of actually posting them. And I think this entry might break if I add any more photos.

In sum: My family is awesome. And our Christmas vacation was fantastic!