Christmas Week Photo Blog

Well it is a New Year and as I am not one for New Year resolutions (I hope to better myself any time of the year), I'm NOT making a resolution to improve the quality of my writing, grammar, or jokes. I will, however, do my best to summarize our holiday Christmas festivities.

Having been in New Hampshire for the past seven Christmases, this was a great chance to again participate in the Hansen family Christmas which, for those of you who know the Hansen family, is big, loud, and full of food. One of the traditions that I missed the most was the breakfast with[out] Santa.  Years ago, we used to go with some of our neighborhood friends to whatever local store or hotel had Santa show up with breakfast. As the years passed on, however, the quality of food deteriorated as did the apparent sobriety of the Santa Claus there. For this reason, we decided to ditch Santa in favor of better food and moved the breakfast to the Little America Hotel. They do a top-notch breakfast buffet that pleases all.

On a side note, our former New Hampshire tradition was to go to a place called the Country Kitchen Diner and though there was no official "Santa Claus" there, there was never a shortage of plump, white-haired, bearded gentleman at this roadside diner to make it feel like a very casual breakfast with Santa.

Back to the present, after our breakfast we made our way across the street to the Grand America Hotel which apparently decorates the windows for Christmas -t his was new to me since I moved away.  Here are a few examples of the windows (Might I note that my voice recognition software has built in Microsoft arrogance as I cannot say the word "Windows "without it automatically capitalizing the word and assuming I mean an operating system and not a transparent piece of glass):

Though Ronin was enchanted by all the colors and toys and candy, he still found it difficult to walk and demanded to be carried (this from a child who never ever slows down).

 

Patrick thought he looked stupid in this picture - so naturally I had to included it. Charlotte apparently scalped an Ewok and wore its head as a trophy.

We did manage to find a Santa of sorts and he was lucky to be fake because I don't like the look on his face with my daughter sitting on his lap. She is 11 years old for heavens sake dude!

I got the kiddies to hold still for an old-fashioned Christmas photo (the black and white hides the fact that the flash is broken on my camera and this photo was horribly red)

 

The next day, we held the Hansen family progressive dinner. I was grateful that the whole troop ventured the hour drive to my house in Mapleton during a snowstorm just for appetizers. I can't say my turkey cranberry wreath was worth the drive but the company was fun. On the way up to Sandy  for the rest of dinner we managed to find ourselves on I-15 behind a spinning car flying into our lane. We opted to skid off the freeway and down a small embankment, dodging any impact. Fortunately, the foot of snow was no match for my Silverado with Wrangler tires and we popped right back up on the freeway using four-wheel drive, check on the other two cars to make sure no one was hurt and headed off to dinner in the snow.  We feel blessed for making it out of that one. 

For Christmas Eve in New Hampshire, we've gone bowling for years and have always been terrible at it (despite my white-trash heritage).  This year, the kids voted on going to the trampoline park here in Provo. Good choice. We had a blast despite a number of bruises and friction burns.

Obviously a family that is not afraid to stare death in the face-so long as there is a nice buffer of soft foam blocks between us and said death.

This photo looks like Charlotte is tight rope walking over the depths of hell. Judging by the number of us who got hurt on this stupid tight rope, the photo is generally accurate.

Despite getting banged up I had to show all the teenagers there that the old guy still has trampoline game by touching the punching bag.  I showed those young whippersnappers as I was only one who could touch the punching bag. Still, all I can think of in watching this video is that I can see my hair getting thin in the back as I'm jumping. So I can jump high, but can't maintain a full head of hair. Not sure how to feel of this.

This was the best kid photo I could manage as Ronin and Locke both kept making faces. Unsurprisingly, after getting chewed out by their father I could not coax a convincing smile out of all five of them.

Christmas morning fun. Santa must have been feeling generous this year, because everybody got something. 

Not satisfied with one Christmas, we held an additional Christmas at my parent’s house with all the families there for the first time in seven years.  Patrick thought he could swim through the pile of presents like Scrooge swimming in his money pit.

Despite had getting no sleep (because I was getting schooled at Halo by the young ones) we bolted the next day the family cabin up in Kamas. We had a great time snowmobiling and sledding and eating.

As with the trampoline park, I tend to forget that I'm getting old until I am halfway down the hill and ready to wipe out (as in the next picture).

We stayed at a cabin until New Year and had a good party with the cousins and lots of food.

The cabin has a mini Chuck-E-Cheese in the basement so we held a competition for the best composite score at all the games. Despite my prowess at the double shot basketball game, I lost my division and the five bucks I put up for the winner.

We tasked Ronin with retrieving any errant ski balls that got stuck between the metal hoops. He was like our own personal R2 unit.  His feet in the hoops also managed to add a few hundred points to your score.

Well that does it for Christmas and New Year's 2013 from the Hansen family. Here's looking forward to optimistic 2014.

It's