It was Christmas on Monday, for those of you non-Christians out there who are unaware. As a confirmed Catholic, I hope you had a good Christmas. As a born human, I hope you had a great day regardless of what you did.

Every year for Christmas eve, my mom’s side of the family gathers at our house and eats and parties and opens presents. We used to go to Church, but we stopped a few years back. I won’t get into my reasons why I’m okay with this at the moment, but maybe some other day once I’ve really figured it out.

Anyway, I snapped some more photos and they’re here:

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My dad also took about 80 photos of every possible combination of the family and I need to get those from him to share. After I post this, I’ll go get them.

In addition to seeing my family drink more than ever (must have something to do with almost everyone being old enough to drink and something having to do with family having to deal with each other; fun regardless), we ate our traditional Christmas foods. They included lasagna, kugel, Polish sausage, pirogi  among other dishes. We also drank a fair amount of homemade, non-alcoholic eggnog. I made sure I offered everyone a shot of vodka and I further made sure to take one with them because they no one should drink alone. Ukraine taught me this.

I received some great gifts that will help me get settled into my apartment, when that move comes. I’m really excited to use my new cast-iron pan. The best gift, however, was the package that showed up in the morning. The Heflins down in Texas sent me a box of oranges, grapefruits, avocados  and pecans. If I understood correctly, the fruits were grown in their yard. They also sent me a Spiderman t-shirt, presumably to go along with the bath towel Mrs. Heflin sent me while I was in Ukraine.

Now I need to find a way to ship them Wisconsin cheese and beer as a thank you.