The Relatives Came...

I'm borrowing the title from the wonderful children's book by Cynthia Rylant because it captures our Christmas so well.  Over the last week my mom, my siblings, and most of their families, gathered here from far and wide (almost the four corners of the country -  California, Oregon, Florida, and New Jersey).  My mom pointed out that it was the first time since 1982 that she had all her kids under one roof for Christmas.  Our enjoyment could have only been improved if even more family members could have been here.

Only a small amount of knitting took place:

My niece received a knit-it elephant kit which we worked on together.  At 7 years old, she's a quick study, and is already knitting, purling, and binding off. 
One of my nephews decided to get in on the act, and started on his own elephant in Lorna's Laces "flames" colorway:

He was a quick learner too.  I will probably finish his elephant for him, to save his parents from having to sew up the knit pieces.  The kit won a Top Toy Award from Creative Child Magazine.  When I'm done I'll let you know if I think the people who voted for the award ever tried to sew up all the itty bitty knit pieces into an elephant!

The rest of the week was a crazy fun-filled time.  My son is the oldest of the kids and had his hands full wrangling cousins and reading Christmas stories:

Meanwhile, the adults had time to act like kids.  The competition was stiff at the chess board, the card table, the bowling alley, and in the garage-newly-turned-rec-room, at the First Annual Family Pool Tournament.  The fun and games were squeezed in between all of the eating and drinking, of course!  We had what we like to refer to as "clustered treats".  For Christmas day, I made pomegranate martinis, and cooked my favorite holiday food, Seafood Gumbo.  On Christmas Eve, the line for cooked crab was 2 hours long!  It was an easy decision to buy the live crab, and cooking it ourselves turned into a family activity:

The pets were not to be left out of the celebration.  We had dogs in hats:
(They'll do anything for a bit of peanut butter.)

As well as a visiting cat:
(This guy found our cat door and made himself quite at home.  We practically had him named, and the adoption papers signed, until we found out that he belonged to new neighbors who were out of town.)

I said good-bye to the last of the guests, including the visiting cat, this afternoon.  I plan on getting back to knitting after an attempt to restore order around the house.  Prior to all of the excitement, I did seam my lace pullover, and made some progress on the Sunday Swing socks.  I didn't get to wear my new sweater on Christmas, but it is now washed and blocked and only waiting for the lace edging around the collar.  I hope I can share pics here soon.