Thursday, December 27, 2007

A Very Merry Christmas Californian Style!

I Hope Everyone Had a Merry Christmas!!! 

Happy New Year's Eve for Today!!!


American's and their Christmas lights! 
I visited this house (Norton's Winter Wonderland: http://nortonswinterwonderland.com) and marveled at this masterpiece as a child when visiting my great grandmother's house! 12 years...later they are still decorating! In fact, the Nortons have been decorating since 1970 and now do so with their a children and grandchildren! A family tradition!

There were many more beautifully decorated houses all over LA! I only wish I could have seen them all! 



First comes Christmas Eve dinner...



Then comes stocking retreval on Christmas morning....
(my Mother made that stocking!)

Then comes the family tradition I haven't experienced since leaving the USA, before Christmas, in 1995! Opening presents with my cousins on Christmas Day! We all had out petite pile of presents under the tree. 

While this fabulous recreation of a living tree lacked it's pine scent and the gifts no longer went as far as my eye could see, nor were they as tall as I was, the cameras still flashed, my Auntie still screamed with joy and Christmas was indeed still merry and bright. It should have been bright!! There were 6 or 7 strands of old fashioned (I love those) Christmas lights on that tree! My grandpa insisted my grandmother liked her tree with lots of lights... and he aims to please!



The gals with gifts! Let there be manicures and pedicures all round! 'Tis the season to be preened and pampered!



Celebrating Christmas the electronic way via the internet! Cara says hi to Australia via webcam (this photo is practically an ad for mac...but it's not...because I still have not made up my mind which piece of diabolic malfunctioning technology I prefer...but 'don't bite the hand that feeds you', right)!





Everyone is in on the action! Our first video Christmas, clustered around the computer! 

PS. Wintery Christmas Eve in LA was 25C (77F) and it stayed fine and pretty pleasant for the duration of the holiday season. Mainly blue skies and cloudless days, sometimes chilly, but really lovely compared to...actual winter! Hooray for having relatives living in the desert! If you don't currently have any...ebay?

4 comments:

ivan plese said...

A superb portrait of your Christmas! So nice to hear you're adjusting well back to your natural habitat.
See you soon! ;)

Anonymous said...

hey hey
read ur email!
-kris
xox

Anonymous said...

Happy New Year pretty pea.

Anonymous said...

hello from sweden, everything is ok here. its total dark at 4PM, its a little bit strange, the wheather is not so cold. the erasmus life is well beginning! eve n if there area lot of french people here, i try to not stay very often with them to improme my english, because i really need to. it is difficult hearding the all day people speaking in english and moreover understanding what they are saying :) nothing more interresting.
so i hope that your father , Ivan and you are fine!! say them hello from me. keep in touch. bisouuus claire

( you have to add me on facebook, miss ;) )