Wow, the past few days have gone by in a blur. I’m wiped out. Our holiday was lovely.

My sister and family arrived without incident on Friday evening and the freaknieces were adorable, racing to us at top-speed in baggage claim and throwing themselves on top of us. On Saturday, my sister and brother-in-law spent the night with the geekboy and me, and we prepped food for Christmas Eve as well as watched Clerks II. Always a good time. I made the wildly popular NY Times no-knead bread. Really, it came out wonderfully with very little work. The only issue I had was the handle on my Le Creuset dutch oven melting a little in the high heat. I’m going to email Le Creuset and find out why that happened. But the bread was delish; MUCH better than the backup store bread we had purchased. There were about 15 people here on Christmas Eve, and we had tons and tons of food. Everything was yummy, and we all went to bed with full tummies.

The geekboy and I exchanged gifts late Christmas Eve. He gave me two books on digital photography (which I sorely, sorely need) and the battery grip for the Rebel. SWEET. I gave him a small shop-vac, Superman: The Donner Cut on DVD, and some other random things. Over at my parents’ house, Santa was kind enough to hook up the geekboy with another season of Buffy on DVD, and a new lens for me. Very cool. My godson gifted me with a cupcake book and a decorator. I think he’s trying to hint at something…

My sister and her family left this morning and there’s already a hole in my heart from missing the girls. They are so crazy and so sweet. I think my favorite thing that happened this weekend was when Freakniece #2 was messing around with the top of my dad’s head and shouted out to the other kids, “LET’S TAKE OUT HIM BRAIN!” Also of note was the three-day contest of “That’s what SHE said” between me, the geekboy, my sister and brother-in-law. Good times. How was your holiday?

Photos!