Christmas 2006

Christmas 2006 was a relatively uneventful year. As usual, on Christmas Eve, the Ngs invited our extended family (both Grandmas, Grandpa Hans, the Tso family and Aunt Joycelin) over to our place for a giant roast. We had not noticed that our dining area was so small until we discovered that we were actually accommodating two additional people at dinner this year! It took some creative thinking to crowd 9 people around a table designed for maximum 6. This is of course not Erich and Elias' first Christmas - that was held last year at St. Paul's Hospital. However, this is the first year they have joined family dinner.

Photo (above): The family gets together for a family photo. Left to right: John, Erich, Grandma Lam, Aunt Joycelin, Karen, Katherine, Grandma Stein, Elias, Grandpa Stein. Photo (below): Karen browns the roast in preparation for dinner.

For the roast, we purchased a giant uncut 12 lb rib roast from Costco. It tasted wonderful after we had carefully cooked it to just the right internal temperature. We'd just never cooked anything quite so big before in our oven!

The boys were well behaved for the most part. It appears they particularly enjoyed the carol singing which we did this year without the aid of a piano - just a few guitar chords to keep us in tune. We cannot wait until they can sing along with us!

Christmas Day was spent mostly delivering Christmas presents to those whom we had not managed to see prior. After seeing the Erich's grandparents again, we dropped off a small token of appreciation (for helping with Erich during Jonathan's business trip) at Nick and Rebekah Bansback's place and was subsequently drafted into their annual Christmas quiz. It was great meeting Nick's parents, albeit "online" via web cam, and we enjoyed being part of their Christmas tradition.

Photo (above): The Ngs join the Bansbacks and their Chilean friends on their yearly Christmas quiz.

After the Bansback's place, we headed off to Uncle Preston's to drop off another few gifts before doubling back to meet up with Katrina. We wanted to express our gratitude to her as well for helping us out with Erich. It was also great to see Katrina's mom.

We spent the evening just the three of us. Thanks to Joe, I was able to show Erich the Dr. Seuss film "How the Grinch stole Christmas" for the very first time. I wanted to treat him to a cartoon I thought he might enjoy, and he obliged. In fact, he loved it except for the exclusive shots of "Mr. Grinch". He didn't take too kindly to his character.