what means the most to me

We are having a small, but memorable Christmas this year...
We decided to upgrade from our 2' shrimpy Christmas Tree that we have used since we got married to a big beauty. The presence of twinkling lights on the tree does make the home more magical. It is decorated with sparse ornaments from my youth (each year i got to pick out a new ornament) mostly cat-themed, I'm afraid, and so memorable. Complete even with a 'baby's first christmas 1980.' This year our little family each picked out a new ornament to adorn the tree with. Hugh: a choo choo train, Becca: an angel, Devin: golf clubs


We ventured to the Bass Pro Shop to get our free picture with Santa :) We have been prepping Hugh for a while that santa claus is "nice." He was very excited to go see him.. but was obviously nervous when daddy left him in santa's arms by himself. :) It was a vast improvement from last year!


As part of our Christmas festivities we had batayaki! (we originally invited some friends to join us...but they came down with some nasty bugs and couldn't make it) So someone had to eat it...
Devin was commenting all night on how well the beef was thinly sliced by the butcher! It was yummy. Hugh was drinking, no exaggeration, the batayaki sauce.

cHrIsTmAs eVe

It wouldn't be a Matsumori Christmas without some good Japanese food! For Christmas Eve we decided to have sushi!...complete with tonkatsu, spicy tuna, crab, cream cheese, avocado, cucumber... and washed it all down with some miso soup. Hugh almost ate us out of seaweed. He ate at least 7 mini seaweed wraps of rice along with his miso soup & tofu. We kept trying to put regular rice in his seaweed, but he would take one bite, denounce the rice as "yucky" and insist that he have sushi rice.

Devin was in heaven with this sushi feast! He made a tonkatsu roll, a spicy tuna roll, and a crab roll with raw tuna & avocado on top. (The sushi was cut professionally with my new chef knife devin got me for christmas) The following pics are a photo storyline of what really happened! Gotta love this guy!


For our Christmas Eve activities we went through a stocking from Grandma Michi that help explained the true meaning of Christmas (stars, candy cane, christmas tree, presents) and then watched THE NATIVITY sent out by the church a few years ago. Hugh was playing with the stocking during the movie, but it was so sweet to see how focused he became when scenes of the baby Jesus appeared coupled with harmonious singing by the Tabernacle Choir singing the "angel song" and the "baby JeJe's song"

Hughie then opened up one present from mommy & daddy..... mickey pj's! We frosted cookies for Santa and then off the bed!

Have a Merry Christmas!