Christmas Evening.

On Christmas Eve we headed over to Jim & Karen's for their Annual Christmas Eve Singing, Dancing & Eating Extravaganza. The kids handled all aspects of production this year, including the old stand-by of the Frosty the Snowman skit, and some new additions... Leah & Ashley dancing to "Baby, It's Cold Outside," and the Mullen family performing "Mele Kalikimaka," accompanied by a ukelele. Austin had an interesting turn as the evening's narrator, "John Malkovich," and Ashley introduced the crowd to some sort of "find-your-match-without speaking" game, which proved to be a lot of fun. And of course, it would not be the Annual Christmas Eve Singing, Dancing & Eating Extravaganza without the singing and dancing! After finishing the evening with the living nativity parade, everyone left for home to prepare for Santa's arrival.

Two more days!

Slow down and enjoy!

Santa Claus is coming to town!

Yesterday Holly, Ethan & Donovan came over to see if the rumors were true - and they were! Santa & Mrs. Claus came roaring down our street in his sleigh, pulled by eight tiny reindeer... or, in a firetruck, led by several police cars with sirens blaring. Santa is not real discreet these days. Anyway, the boys had fun playing and waiting, and waving, and catching footballs and candy that Santa's elves threw to them.

Poppy & Gheghe have left the building.

We had a great Christmas with the Pop and Ghe-ster! So glad they decided to come down and spend it with us. They left this morning for the trip back up to LI.












Happy Trails!

Merry Christmas!*

*Please accept, with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious tradition or persuasion of your choice, including but not limited to secular practices, with respect for the religious and/or secular traditions or practices of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally sound and successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures, whose contributions to society have helped to make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country, nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. And without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting these greetings, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal at any time without prejudice to either party. It is freely transferable with no alteration of the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself, himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher, without approval or agreement from the wishee. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of any subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and this warranty is limited to the wisher's obligation to replace this wish or issue a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

(saw this on another blog and had to share!)

Here Comes Santa Claus...

... right down our lane!

Check us out!

Go Elf Yourself!
and then, Go Scrooge Yourself!

Photo of the Day. Possibly of the Year.

Last night we attended Lake Mary's Annual Holiday in the Park/Tree Lighting Ceremony. Much bizarreness ensued. The mayor, along with a large group of children, counted down and the beautiful tree in central park was lit. Actually, it took several seconds after they hit "1" for the lights to turn on, but hey, who's counting? Oh yeah - everybody. Immediately after the lighting, the musical entertainment broke into everyone's favorite Christmas song... "ole, ole, ole, ole - feelin' hot, hot, hot!" and then everyone formed one of those bunny hop/tango lines and danced around the park. In the distance, you could hear the beautiful sounds of Santa's sleigh bells... wait... that's sirens... getting much louder! Suddenly, three squad cars come screeching around the corner, followed closely by a fire truck, lights ablaze - and out jumps the big guy himself!














This photo shows Santa being led through the crowds by the head Police Elf. Santa's handlers had to form a human chain so that the kids (and their camera-wielding crazy parents) could not form a mosh pit around him. I think the picture is funny, though, because it looks like Santa is being arrested by an elf and chased by the paparrazzi.

Anyway, Merry Christmas!

Another Magical Moment.

The Holiday Season has officially gotten underway at planet mancuso! The kids celebrated Thanksgiving with their friends today at their school's annual feast, and are now off for the holiday until the Monday after Thanksgiving. We then decided to make a quick trip down to Disney MGM to see the Osbourne Spectacle of Lights display.













































After seeing the more than a million lights dance to music, John and Jack rode Rock-n-Rollercoaster then we made for the exit. We decided to stop in at Scoops, a little corner ice cream joint, for some, well, ice cream. We placed our orders, and as John went to pay, an official "Magical Moments" dude stepped in and told us that our ice cream was on Mickey today!

Home, Sweet Gingerbread Home...

...OR NOT.

Leah & Olivia were eager to participate in today's Decorate A Gingerbread House Day... here is their creation. They worked so hard on it, and then to have a crazed Gingerbread Man attack, it's just, too sad!!





















**See calebnation and thevoiceofrawlins celebrate the day as well!

The Tree.

For the past several Christmases, Aunt Sherry & Uncle Tom have sent us a real tabletop tree - complete with pinecones, berries and ribbon. When you open the box, the scent of evergreen fills our palm-treed air. We have come to look forward to this special delivery very much - kind of like a little slice of our northern home for Christmas. (In fact, just last week I said to myself, "Self, where is this year's tree? Harumff!" And then the next day, there it was at my front door!) Thank you very much, Aunt Sherry and Uncle Tom, the yearly tree makes us very happy.

For today's music, a little Rob Thomas - a new favorite of mine!

Let There be Peace.

We attended the long-awaited Winter Show at Leah & Jack's school today. It was a great production and the kids did a wonderful job. Each class sang a song, and then the middle school theater students performed in Dickens' A Christmas Carol.





















Jack's class did a hip-hop number, "Sounds All Around Us."























Leah was the narrator for the play, and also turned up as an extra in a scene or two.



























For the finale, all the classes sang together on "Let There Be Peace on Earth" - one of my favorites!

One week to go!

We here on the planet just finished up a fun-filled, Christmas-y weekend. We had Family Movie Night on Friday night, watching "Elf," a family favorite, and eating Smartfood. Saturday afternoon, John and I went to his company party at The Melting Pot while the kids spent the afternoon at their cousins' house, planning top-secret Christmas Eve skits. That evening, John and I were able to attend a friend's Christmas party for a short time, then it was off for a fun-filled two hours at the ER with Jack, where doctors removed a "googly eye" that had mysteriously become lodged in his ear. And this evening, we attended our neighborhood's annual Christmas Block Party and Lighting of the Luminarias. This year we had a Chili Cook-off along with a visit from Santa.

































The Chili Cook-off Judges, hard at work.Yes, John is one of the judges; however, it was a blind taste test. Having said that, I am now free to tell you that the author of this blog won second place in the Chili Cook-off...


Will enjoyed checking out the luminarias!





















See you next week, Santa!



















** Yes, my mother tortured us as children with her Bing Crosby Christmas records (eight tracks?). Although I don't have anything against the Bing, I am going to play some of our family favorite Christmas tracks - each day I will change it to a different fave. Today is one of my favorites by Harry Connick, Jr.

It takes a village.

Jack became interested in setting up a Christmas village this year, so he and John have been hard at work in the garage designing and creating their layout. They unveiled the village over the weekend - great job, guys!

It's a Wrap.

Some shots of the house...

Little tree in the kitchen, I decorated with white lights, wooden cranberries and Christmas-themed cookie cutters.




















The family room...


































and the outside.