Feliz Navidad 2009

Since Taylor and Courtney wasted all their vacation days on a wedding and honeymoon in 2009 and had to stay at home over Christmas (I guess I can't blame them) and Tanner was in Argentina for his last Christmas in the mission, that meant I could avoid expensive plane tickets, crazy holiday travel, and cold weather - hooray!  Mom and Dad came to Arizona to hang out with their families (and me).  After spending many of my childhood Christmases in AZ, it's just not Christmas if we're not in AZ.

As usual, we start Christmas Eve with the Kleck clan.  Instead of a ham, Grandma made her awesome prime rib.  Little Zsa Zsa was hoping that Grandpa would drop some on the floor for her.

Christmas morning - I opened a few non-surprises since maybe we buy our own stuff and have someone else wrap it up for us.

Then it's off to visit dad's family down in Coolidge, the awesomest little town that we all hated visiting when we were kids.  The cousins protested such visits and tried to get someone to take us down to Tucson or at least to the Bottle Stop so we could get out of the house.  Instead we were (and still are) subjected to family photos which consist of mass chaos and Grandma yelling at us to move around, in addition to the musical talent shows that we all must perform in, even though we haven't played our instruments in nearly a decade.  

Even so, Christmas at the Williams family means the best Mexican food you ever did eat.  I still remember last year's meal as a heavenly feast.  Grandma makes tamales, there are enchiladas, green chile meat for burros, fresh beans, Uncle Rick's ridiculously hot salsas and unbelievably good posole.  I ate soooo many bowls of it!  And stole some to take home.  I've never had better.

At the end of the day when we're all stuffed and not feeling so well, it's a bit of a comfort to know we've got two pharmacists, a nurse, a chiropractor in the house, and another doctor on speed-dial.