Christmas, otherwise known as Ancient History

Here's how our Christmas trip to PA began:
(Dark, silent house. Everyone is sound asleep. Lansing's mobile begins to ring from somewhere under the bed.)

"Hi, this is your airport car service...we're out front for your 7 am pick-up but just checking we have the right house since there aren't any lights on..."

There are a couple of morals to this story:

1) Don't let Lansing be in charge of waking you up for your next overseas flight.
2) Don't leave critical items such as, say, THE CAMERA, to be packed in the morning before a 7-a.m. departure for the airport.
3) Don't book yourself and your (adorable but absent-minded) husband and your 2 (adorable but hyper) small children on an early-morning flight from the busiest airport in the city.
4) If you disregard #3, be sure NOT to also disregard #'s 1 & 2, because your children will rapidly drop any pretense of adorability when they discover that you have not packed them any breakfast and that furthermore you will not be able to obtain any breakfast until you are safely through security and within sprinting distance of your departure gate, time permitting.

But despite the shaky start, we had a terrific time catching up with Lansing's family- all 8 siblings were there, with their families, plus grandparents and his mom's sister & her husband. I think the grand total was 33 people, including 13 kids. Lansing's dad came to our rescue, photo-wise, and the pictures below are all courtesy of him.

His parents were fantastic, patient, perfect hosts (no doubt raising 8 children makes you somewhat impervious to chaos.) They let the kids set up a Geo-Trax set in the study:



Ethan was obsessed with these trains, enjoying the role of Omnipotent Railway Controller. A couple of times I had to speak with him about Bossiness Issues, as he really couldn't understand why his fellow train-drivers would not bend to his will like good little puppets. I know, Ethan, it's really the hardest life lesson, that you can't force everyone to do what you'd like them to do (at least not all the time.) I'm still coming to terms with that myself.

One day all the kids made candy trees. I love this picture, it gives you a good sense of what it's like with 30-plus people in the house:


Here's Ethan with his finished product:



On Christmas Eve we went to Hershey Park to take the kids on the Chocolate World ride (quick tour of the chocolate-making process, followed by free samples and lots of whining when you disembark in a huge candy shop and the kids demand to buy everything in sight.) Here's a shot of Ethan at Chocolate World with his cousins Kathryn and Bethany, all 6 years old:



Cuties! Here's another of them, at home by the tree...



And some of all the kids together, on the stairs:



And in their pj's, below. If some of them look at little traumatized in this second one, that's because there was some threatening going on. I'm not sure it's possible to get 13 children 10 and under in a picture together without a little arm-twisting (metaphorical, of course. At least I didn't observe any actual arm-twisting.)

It had been ages since we'd seen everyone and there were at least a couple of babies we'd never met, so it was great to see everyone. Afterwards we headed east to the Poconos and met my sister and her daughter for a couple of days at Great Wolf Lodge. Ethan and Taylor (his cousin) have spent lots of time together over the past several years and he's always thrilled to see her. Naturally I have no pictures of my own from the waterpark either. Kristin? Anything?

Coming soon: my friend Shannon has tagged me to tell the story of Lansing & I Getting Engaged. Which I'm happy to do. Just, you know, bring a bucket, because the tackiness and sappiness of our story is gag-inducing even to me.