For the record, I also enjoyed the company of my fabulous and charming parents over Christmas. I inadvertently failed to mention them in my last post.

I adore these two goofballs. ❤️

<

The holidays. It is a beautiful thing to have your family around you. To have a good excuse to crack that fantastic bottle of wine you’ve been hoarding. To laugh and celebrate with dear friends. It’s also completely exhausting.

This Christmas season was special because Tatertot and family trekked North. The boys had a full-blown cousin-palooza.

Every Christmas Eve, my extended family comes together to celebrate with obscene amounts of (delicious) Polish-American food and beverages of multiple nationalities. But, the highlight every year is our visit from Santa. We’re pretty connected, and Santa has made our party his first Midwest stop since my Dad was a kid. Thankfully, Bambino/Hushpuppy and Tot were on the Good List.

Christmas morning was filled with books, music, and shredded wrapping paper. Bambino received a ukelele from Santa this year. A microphone and drum pad also appeared under various trees. He officially considers himself a rock star.

Unfortunately, he’s been living the toddler rock star lifestyle. This involves prodigious amounts of sugar and limited sleep. We sent him to Nonna’s to detox. (Which, on second thought, may not be the best place to fight a sugar addiction…)

While Bambino fought the sugar bugs, his ever-responsible parents hopped a plane to Las Vegas. Il Marito had to go for work, and we both needed a vacation.

We met my cousin’s sweetheart and her charming family for a happy hour. A fantastic dinner followed. Unfortunately, food poisoning was next up. We spent 24 hours in bed.

Lesson learned– sometimes you get what you need, instead of what you want. We missed some fantastic dinner reservations. We did not skate on the Cosmopolitan’s pools. But, I got a lot of sleep. And, more importantly, I spent a lot of uninterrupted time talking to my husband. I missed talking- really talking- to that guy. So, Vegas was a weird success.

By the way, the Aria is fabulous. Next time, I’ll hopefully eat more than saltine crackers. 😉

Until next time…