Life with our little water buffalo: First xmas as a family of three

Well I hope everybody is having a great holiday season. Ours has been pretty low key. As we don't have any family nearby it was just the three of us (6 if you include the cats and dog). We kept our gift purchasing for Van to a minimum because we knew he has really no clue what all the fuss is about and also the family had sent a sizable haul. There are a couple of simple traditions we have for the holidays that we decided to introduce him to. One of them is that Pat makes raisin bread using his mom's traditional recipe. It is made from scratch on xmas eve.

Then it is toasted and enjoyed xmas morning. Van seemed to like this tradition.

Another tradition for us (and for most Canadians) is to watch the World Junior Hockey Championships which officially starts on Boxing Day and run into the New Year. We decided a family pic with us in our Canadian sweaters (jerseys) was in order. Sadly we don't have any that would fit the cats. Besides, I challenge anyone to attempt to dress two cats and then pose with them ;) We tried the multiple picture setting on our camera and hoped for the best. 20 pictures later and this is probably the best one.

Another example in the funny but no so good pile.

Finally it was xmas present time. We decided to leave the presents from Santa unwrapped (another tradition acquired from Pat's family). Van did notice that there were new toys. Actually new is a bit generous on the parking garage one. We had bought that before we even went to Vietnam. We had it out for Van in the summer but he showed no interest so into the basement it went until Santa brought it out for xmas. Sadly he is still not into it (mainly just tries to climb it) so it has once again been relegated to the basement for another future attempt. Here he is checking out some of his loot.