A full house is a warm one...

What a wonderful Christmas Holiday we had!!

Thank you all that came and shared.

The first day of the holiday I learned something new that I think everyone on the planet knew but me... Brian and I where at the check out line at the market finishing up the food shopping for our guests and I bemoaned the fact that I forgot to get mistletoe... so Brian said that's ok we'll just go find some on our place... I scoffed "where are you going to find mistletoe?" thinking it was some sort of exotic bush that grew in Hawaii or something... Brian looked at me and said you don't know where mistletoe comes from??? I was a little embarrassed as we where in line and the guys behind us was basically part of our conversation.. He said it grows in oak trees way up high and you shoot it down with a shot gun... I laughed thinking this was some snipe hunting joke and said something like " ah yeah right!" at which point the guy behind us in line chimed in and corroborated the story ... I thought now really this is crazy even this stranger is in on Brian’s scheme ... so on the drive home Brian began pointing out the mistletoe high up in the oak trees ... see there's another bunch he'd say proudly... so after unpacking our groceries Michael and Brian marched up the hill to the woods with shot guns over their shoulders to go find the wifey some mistletoe... I'm happy to report a big bunch of mistletoe got delivered to me about an hour later. We had lots of bunches around the house ...above the sink the doorways and even above our beds ... let's just say there was lots of holiday lovin' to go around : ) ...

The Holiday was full of great food and desserts..

The desserts where many... The first night was thanks to Ethine's wonderful Christmas cake she sent to Roisin that she shared with us,

Christmas eve was Josephs cheesecakes which where so good and quite rich!! and for christmas we enjoyed Marys plum pudding which got lit although that's hard to capture in film.....

I added homemade limoncello and a lemon pie to the mix : ) lemons courtesy of Joseph and Michael and California... : )

There where also lots of chocolates and nuts and other goodies including fruit that graced our table... the meals where wonderful and Michael and Haley generously donated all the meat ... ribs, brisket and the game hens we had on Christmas .. yummy!

Michael and I also teamed up and did it again the Christmas stolen with mom's recipe.. there was some throwing of flower but we still managed to make a pretty good stolen .. in fact it was all gone by the end of Christmas day so it must not have been too bad : )

For entertainment there was skeet shooting thanks to Michael followed by some target practice... Haley proved to be a crack shot as did Brian...

Joseph gettin' down with the skeet

we did take some nice walks and enjoyed visiting animals.

chasing dinner?... : )

We got a totally white Christmas with big fluffy snow falling all day on Christmas day... it was magical... there where games played after dinner a few nights. Mr Eoin had lots of toys from Santa including this train that appeared under the tree for Christmas morning.

and this was his gift to Santa’s reindeer.

We also enjoyed dinosaur races and taught Mr Eoin to be a bookie and take bets .. I sure Mary appreciated that.. : )

... other than that we generally just hung out and enjoyed each other...

Their where some quote-able quotes this year that Joseph recorded for us : )

Eoin... and Chris... "Eoin what's your favorite day of the week?..." Eoin "Christmas!"

Clare "we voted and we are NOT noshing in the kitchen all day"

Chi "I obviously didn't get a vote"

Matt "I'm not siding with him because it's Brian it's because he's right"

Joseph "and then I found 5 dollars"

I can’t wait for you to all come back next year it was a wonderful time with you all!!!