Happy Holi-daze!

The holidays were amazing, but all too quick.  Unfortunately just before Christmas, I had a big project (that I'm still drowning in) come up and it zapped a lot of my time and energy right at holiday time.  It was stressful, but in the end it all worked out and we still had a great couple of weeks.  

Finnish Christmas Dinner

For Christmas, I wanted to make sure that I did something special for Freddy.  So, I sought out advice from his Finnish parents (Erik & Anki) about what Christmas is like in Finland.  It was very easy for me to get in touch with them because they are so very helpful and communicative.  They were quite pleased to help me with traditions, recipes and all other things Finnish.  Mike and I planned to have a three day Christmas celebration.  

We began on Christmas Eve, with our first trip snowboarding/skiing for the winter season.  We all had a great time.  Freddy showed me a few tips (this is only my second year snowboarding) and I did very well for the first trip of the season.  I even did one of the steepest hills with Freddy by my side.  Freddy really is an exceptionally great snowboarding partner.  He always stayed behind me or slowed down to make sure I was all right.  And, of course, when I hit the ground he'd make sure I was all right.  We all had so much fun and it was a great start to the holiday.  That night when we got home I began putting together all of the "top secret" Finnish food I had been working on.  We had told Freddy that we were going to have Finnish Christmas on the 24th, but I left many things out.  I warmed up the glögg, ham and put the rutabaga casserole into bake.  I also made up a bit of a smorgasbord for us with multiple other things (salmon, especially for Freddy).  It went great.  We also got online to skype with Finland after all of their festivities were over.  It was very nice to chat with Erik, Anki, Mimmi and Oskar.  After chatting and dinner we opened presents from Finland.  We got some amazing gifts and we're so thankful for a little piece of Finland!  The best gifts I received were cookbooks!  Freddy brought me a book from Greece and the rest of the Boijers sent me a beautiful Finnish cookbook.  I am so excited to make something out of both.  Although, technically, I've already made rutabaga casserole that is in the Finnish book.

We continued with American Christmas the next morning.  Freddy had his first American stocking and we had nice relaxing day at home.  I got an AWESOME present from my husband.

A mazel t-shirt!  So fantastic along with my immersion blender.  Freddy became a normal American teenager with a new iPod.  iTunes was tough for him to learn, but he's clearly got the hang of it now.  

That evening after a couple of skyping sessions Mom, Dad and Dana came over for dinner.  We had leftover Finnish Christmas dinner with some American added in.  Eggnog, etc.  We played a couple of good natured games of Scene It and then we were off to bed for day 3 of the festivities.

Day 3 was Christmas with the family at my Mom & Dad's house.  It's always a long fun day of food presents and games.  We did stockings as always and then a little breakfast before the big presents and opening of gifts to/from each other.  My Mom apparently needed kitchen supplies this year because she got 2 waffle makers and 2 food processors!!  We finished the day with Freddy's first time playing Pit.  Sooooo much fun!  I'm pretty sure he thought we were lunatics when we all began shouting at the top of our lungs, but it took him only one game to be shouting louder than all of us.  That game is definitely a favorite!  Misc pictures below.