the birds, the bees and a baby: Christmas 2011 at Hotel Charlton (abbreviated version)

That's right - we hosted our first Christmas here in West Chester and had 12 people stay over. It was nice to have everyone here and not have to rush them out at night. Everyone arrived on Christmas Eve (all at different times), we went to Christmas Eve mass and then had a big feast to follow. The first night we had a standing rib roast, grilled salmon, mushroom risotto, and asparagus. My sister in law Asia's mother and niece were in town from Poland so they brought some amazing dishes as well! Henry opened a magnum of really good wine (in which I couldn't indulge) and we all just sat around the dinner table and talked. I was exhausted and called it a night around 10 and the guys built a fire in our outside fireplace (the guys took turns going up into the woods and bringing small trees back) and drank more wine and enjoyed their cigars.

Christmas day we all got up on our own schedule (we got up on lil Henry's of course) and just enjoyed the morning. Henry built another fire and we kind of just did as we pleased. We opened presents mid morning which took a LONG time :) Around 1:30pm we all sat down and ate our Christmas lunch/dinner. We had baked ham, fried turkey, garlic mashed potatoes, cornbread stuffing, cranberry sauce and green beans. It was so yummy! We just relaxed the remainder of the day. Thomas, Asia and her family had to leave late afternoon so we had 4 less people Sunday night. That evening we were all still stuffed so just sat around the T.V. and watched Christmas movies.

My mom was able to stay through Wednesday so the house is pretty much back in order - but talk about laundry - WOW!!

Photos are somewhat out of order - forgive me :)