On the 26th, chaos errupted as the remainder of my immediate family with spouses and children in tow, arrived at my parent's home. Well, they didn't actually arrive as scheduled! Everyone was supposed to arrive at some point around noon or so. But my oldest brother, who lives in Manhattan, went over to the car rental agency to get a car for the trip and despite having one already reserved, they had nothing. All that he could do was wait for the first incoming return. So wait he did, and ended up getting a big huge, very nice, SUV. My brother is not an SUV fan, but he feared waiting for another would take a few hours, so he took what he could get!
My other brother called, and little Rebecca had decided that she couldn't go potty, so rather than pack her in the car and worry that there could really be something wrong, they called the doc and headed off to the doctor's office.
Both brothers and their respective families did finally arrive upstate around 2-3 in the afternoon. My mother had been brewing our traditional Christmas dinner, turkey with all the trimmings, but there was no way in the world the kids were going to sit peacefully and eat when there were bundles of shiny packages tied up with bows awaiting them. So, the packages came first!
For me, it was cashmere heaven as I acquired 2 new cashmere sweaters. I also received some beautiful jewelry, a big basket of yummy smelling lotions and potions and assorted other wonderful things. Opening gifts with 4 children under the age of 12 is always fun, and always a bit nuts, but all in all a wonderful day.
Ole and I decided to share a Danish tradition with my family so the night before, Ole had made a HUGE pot of the rice pudding, and on the 26th we added the whipped cream and almonds to officially turn it into ris a la mande. Since there are almond allergies in part of the family, we had to divide the whole pot into two halves and only add the crushed almonds to one. This also meant we could only 'hide' the almond in one of the bowls. So rather than let them in on the secret, we told the kids, who were having the almond free variety, that there was a surprise hidden in the bowl and that they would need to eat some to get the special prize. I was worried they would think it was strange-tasting, but they absolutely loved it and kept running in to get more. What we didn't tell them, until they had finished almost the whole portion, was that instead of the traditional almond, we had put a sticker on one of their bowls. Joey (the oldest) then found the sticker and received the special gift. My brother Tim (Joey's dad) found the actual almond in the traditional bowl and got a special gift as well. It was great fun for us to be able to share a Danish Christmas tradition with my American family and to be able to bring something new to the table that everyone enjoyed.
A few pics from the days festivities:
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