Holiday Fun at the Bailey House

 It was another fun holiday season in the Bailey house!

We start the month of December off right with a visit from St. Nicholas.  St. Nicholas always leaves goodies in the kids boots, including candy, small toys, and even some fruit and nuts! (Aaaand maybe a Moon Pie or two!)

We got the trees decorated (that only took a couple of weeks ha ha).  This is our living room, or the "official" Christmas tree.  This year, we realized our old trees weren't looking so good anymore, and the built in lights stopped working. So Todd went out to get us a couple of new fake trees. Should last us until at least 2032 (you know... when I move back to Europe!), right!?

I love this new little tree.  We have so many White House holiday ornaments that we decided to make a whole tree of it!

I read that the Magic of Lights is in it's LAST YEAR at Gillette Stadium - I believe the exact words were "last time ever!" So we had to go one more time to enjoy this pandemic era tradition that we started in 2020. Prehistoric Christmas, this way!

No Mr. T-Rex, don't eat our Christmas tree!

Grant still appreciates the monster truck with the American flag. It's not Christmas until there's a monster truck running over a hatchback!  I also appreciate that I shared this exact same picture in a blog post last year. Excellent.

There was even a Barbie theme in one section this year.  Totally bizarre. Ha ha. We will miss this and will have to find something else next year to replace this ridiculous tradition!

Natalie had her concert choir holiday concert, which was very good, as usual. Natalie in the front, second from the right (same place she was last year!)

In the Bailey family, everyone tends to spend the actual Christmas day at their own home, with their own traditions. Usually, we go to Warren and Carole's the day after Christmas, but the rest of the family had other plans. So Warren and Carole hosted a "weekend before Christmas" party, complete with a massive spread of pickies! 

Look!  Helen and Gordie were there! GoGo was there!  Seth was there! 

But do you know who was not there?  Me and the kids.  Both kids had colds (not COVID) and we obviously didn't want them spreading that a week before Christmas, so we stayed home.  The family did a White Elephant and had yummy food and we had to miss it! I even missed Gordie getting a bidet for the holidays!

Alas, the kids recovered from that cold, and it was finally time for the big day.  Christmas Eve!

We took our silly pictures, all dressed up for church.

This year, we went to St. Patrick's in Natick, which is the same church Natalie made her first communion in, and the same one Grant was baptized in. It's been a lot of years since Father Kiely was here (he's now a Very Reverend at the National Seminary in Weston!) but we still love this church!

While we were leaving church, THIS HAPPENED!  He was in K-Town, and he's heading for Munich!

After church, we went to... where else?  Pizzeria Unos! This is by far, our funniest Christmas Eve tradition. It's because nothing else is open! (And I ain't cooking!)

My babies. Someday, perhaps someone will think that they are twins, just like people thought my brother and I were twins! They definitely have the same eyes.

On our way back home from Christmas Eve dinner at Uno's, we stopped real quick to take a picture of this house on Myrtle Street in North Ashland. They really do a great job of decorating every year!

And now, it's time to throw that reindeer dust because Santa is on his way!

Every year, they look super blurry. I love that Natalie only has one leg here. And may be missing her left arm.

Phew, her arm and leg returned!  Now, it's time to open the traditional Christmas Eve gift...

Pajamas!  This year, everyone got a Deez Nuts nutcracker shirt!

This should have been our Christmas card.

But... what Grant???

Ok, why don't you put the actual pajama set I got you on, so that Daddy can read you 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.  Natalie got a Nelson and Murdock law firm t-shirt - I think Daredevil was her favorite show this year.

I did NOT realize this story was so funny.

What? That's what happens in this saga???

Their faces were all so funny that I had to include THREE pictures of this reading event!

After the annual reading of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, the kids wrote a letter to Santa. HOW are we not rich from all of the acting gigs they've pulled.

Natalie, please stop eating Santa's cookies. Grant, that's a bit too much eggnog!

Hey, at least they like each other on Christmas Eve.

Todd took a nice, final photo of the letter, cookies, celery, eggnog and the pretty candle wreath his parents sent us.

Ahhhh. Finally, the kids are in bed and the night is done.

I feel like Santa should be over my house around midnight, but the guy keeps a tight schedule. I'm impressed. 10:40 pm!

After a good night sleep (the kids didn't wake until 8 am!), it was Christmas morning! The stockings are always the first thing we open!

The kids tore open their stockings, full of candy, bathroom products and other goodies! Grant is opening a screaming goat, while Natalie got a BTS poster!

00 days til Christmas!

After the stockings were opened, we have to take the traditional, "pretend you're coming down the stairs to open presents on Christmas morning" picture.

This was their real reaction to the tree!

Grant FINALLY got his Quest 2 virtual reality headset! He has been asking for this FOR YEARS, but they recommend that the user is a minimum age of 13.  So this was the year!

Todd loves to tear right into those presents!

Grant tried on the Quest 2 to see how the fit was.

Not only did he get a new robe, but he also got the 2022 Hess truck from Nana (and Pop Pop, I'm sure!) My mom asks every year if he's still interested in the Hess truck, and every year he says yes. 

Natalie kept herself warm by the Yule Log fire while she opened up her presents.

The kids each got a small plot of land in Kerry, Ireland so they are now officially Lord Grant and Lady Natalie of Kerry!  Hmm. I think this means we all need to go to Ireland again???

She just looked cute here. That's all. 💜

We finally finished opening gifts and Todd made us our YUMMY breakfast sandwiches!  Mine (on the left) is bacon, egg and cheese.  Natalie's (on the right) is egg, cheese and cream cheese.

But wait. DID WE finish opening gifts??? No, we did not!  This year, we decided to get Grant an iPhone.  Todd and I got new iPhone 14s in the fall when we switched to Verizon, and they gave us a free iPhone 12 when we switched Grant's flip phone line over to Verizon as well.  We gave that 12 to Natalie, and then cleaned off her 11, got it a new battery and gave it to Grant. So it's basically a brand new iPhone 11.  

After all of the gifts were opened (for real this time), Todd got the Quest 2 set up so we could play in the basement!

I appreciate how ridiculous we all look in this thing. Look. I'm busy fighting bad guys with a light saber, ok???

After our Quest 2 battles in the basement, Todd and I made our famous 9,000 calorie holiday meal! Leftover Reames egg noodles from last year were a big hit!  And we had leftovers for literally days.

The day after Christmas, we drove down to Plymouth to spend some time with Todd's parents. Todd hooked up the Quest 2 and his dad played a little golf in the living room!

Grant really needed to show everyone how it was done though!

We only spent one night at the Bailey house before coming back home.  Todd got Natalie and I the BTS package on Beat Saber, which we have been having a blast doing.  Grant decided on this particular night, after we were done dancing to BTS songs, that he wanted to Beat Saber to Freebird!

Oh and there was a lovely sunset on the 28th. Almost rivaled the sunsets from Auerbach.  Notice the Icelandic flag we have flying, ha!

On the 29th, Todd and Grant went skiing at Ski Ward.

The boys went skiing by themselves this day (Natalie chose to go to the mall with her friends) so it was a nice day for the boys to hang out together!

And for our final social event of 2022, Todd and I dropped the kids off with Anna and GoGo (saints in nephew and niece-in-law form) in Wilmington and went to the annual Cucci holiday party in Wakefield!  Here, Kern wanted to display "Deez Nuts" for the kids.

Todd discovered a harem of Wilmington ladies in Beth, Karen, Dorothy and I.  Look close, because Karen is actually directly behind Todd!

Michelle and Dorothy always look cute, and Kern is just always being Kern.

We always have a great time at the Cucci house - you can see they always provide a great spread of food.  You will not leave this party hungry!

I seriously thought that I was the funniest part of this picture that I snapped thinking it was Kern's phone, but it turns out it was Todd's phone (what? You don't know your husband's phone? NO. He got a new phone and a new case so I didn't know!) But really, the best part is Mike's face here! Or maybe Dorothy's. 

Beth is my people.

Ok, we took a cute one!

As the night went on, the Malden crew joined us for our pictures. I like how we are bookended by Corrigan brothers. We have also almost lost Karen. And where is Joe? And Christine is looking away!

Wait, now Karen isn't even looking! And maybe that's Joe back there behind Crias?

Holy what the what.  This was taken of Kern, Todd, Joe, Ryan, Mike, Dorothy, me and OB BEFORE Grant was even born. Between kids.  When Cooch and Karen had a totally different kitchen. We didn't even live in Massachusetts at the time!

But you know Todd and Kern are going to be Todd and Kern.  Even though Mike was physically in the room, they felt the need to do this lol.

Cooch's brother invented this game and everyone was playing it.  I don't think I've seen Todd laugh that hard in a LONG time.  There was a lot of yelling with this one!

And we wrapped up 2022 with our favorite New Year's Eve tradition - Dinner For One! Same procedure as last year Miss Sophie?  Same procedure as EVERY year, James!

And it's the same procedure every (new) year in the Bailey house too!  Grab some pots and pans and start banging!

Somehow I didn't get a picture of J-Hope from BTS playing some songs on Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve, but we did capture a pic of Duran Duran (my favorite band when I was a little kid) with 47 seconds left in 2022!

And we're on to 2023!