One more!

... and more Facebook Christmas posts.

For posterity.

Yum!

Number Five's high school friends all came over for some Brazilian food, laughter, reminiscing and singing! 

Our local sports grill, where Number One takes us for a dose of football every time he comes. With their fried green beans,  some nice beer on tap and juicy burgers, we accept the invitation every time! 

And this is how we celebrate birthdays on Facebook! 

Facebook Christmas posts

It is difficult to search for previous posts on Facebook, so I like to add highlights here since we can always look back on the blog and re-live our Christmas highlights! 

I had seen this image long ago and am so happy someone posted it on Facebook! 

Number One went to Nebraska for his annual reunion with High School friends! 

And Number Seven loves her new digital drawing tools!

More Christmas!

The four beautiful daughters! After doing music at Christmas Mass...

The "Christmas Couple"

At Christmas Vigil supper, they opened our early gift: the Nativity we found at the same store where Number Three bought the engagement ring!

Laughter, love and reminiscing during the Christmas toasts!

Christmas dinner the next day: we were honored with the presence of a professor who was not able to be with his family.

Blog post borrowed from Number Six!

Friday, December 26, 2014

Christmas!

We are having a lovely Christmas!
On Christmas Eve Tessie and I cantored for the first time for the 6 pm Mass. Then Mom, Isabel, Gus, and Thomas joined us and we sang in the choir for caroling and 9 pm Mass. Afterwards we got pictures in front of the Church's huge tree.

A lady from Church made my dress--isn't she talented??









Then we came back to a light meal (mostly made up of cookies and pies) and there was a lot of toasting going on. Mom and Dad went to bed and everyone else boisterously cleaned the kitchen while singing Christmas songs at the top of our lungs. Some people stayed up to watch a movie, but I went to bed.


Next morning we all got up early so we could do breakfast and presents. It was tons of fun as usual, with some pretty cool gifts! I won't go into details, but you can see the whole story here. We  played some games, and just hung out. Then one of Dad's colleagues came over for Christmas dinner, by which time we were all more than a little tired (and I was getting sick). But we still had fun, and later we finished the movie that everyone else had fallen asleep watching the night before.







Today we are planning some art, shopping, visiting with friends, and relaxing. Patrick also left for Lincoln, NE to see his friends there. So here we go with the rest of Christmastide! (Which I would like to remind everyone lasts until February 2.)


Merry Christmas!







Posted by Maria B-H at 12:34 PM

Borrowing a post from Number Two's blog!

Besides many other special things about this Christmas, it is also the Christmas where I have been behind in just about everything. I am still sending Christmas greetings! So I borrow this comprehensive post from Number Two's blog!


Christmas morning at the Braga-Henebry's


We already had had a bunch of presents under the tree... but Santa still makes a stop at this house despite our lack of little kids!





Sisters in the early morning.




Present time! We had a first round of gifts from littlest sisters Maria and Tessie. All the gifts were either adorably homemade, or from one of the town's many, amazing antique shops. I took shots of some of the impressive art Maria gave out.







After that, I gave out the gifts I had ordered for the family from fair trade site Seven Hopes United (having had a good experience when they were one of our wedding registries)... before I knew I was coming! Mom and dad got a serving dish handmade and painted in Mexico,



and each sibling (and one future sibling) got hand painted cups from India that I thought were just lovely.









and Tessie got some stationary which she thought was just too cute.




Mom got a beautiful shirt from Marrakech,



and she and dad are enjoying the beautiful coffee table book full of photographs of Morocco,



and the boys are loving the entire KILO of chocolate!




Patrick's gifts to the family were an Apple TV (whose use he had to explain to us of course),





and official World Cup Brazil jerseys for the girls! Also, not pictured, is a stylus and corresponding iPad app for the artists of the family to make spectacular illustrations. More on that in a future post.




Then came Santa's presents, including some great piano music and composition book for the pianists Maria and Isabel, lots of arty things for Tessie and others, and some things made by mom or coming from her travels... because as she explained to us when we were younger (to explain the wrapping paper we helped make with potato stamps), busy busy Santa employs moms as his helpers.



Patrick got a Lonely Planet stickerbook to prepare him for his upcoming (and slightly insane) vacation to Antarctica...



and Tessie fangirled over an ultimate Percy Jackson guide.



Maria rejoiced over a thermos cup that wouldn't get polluted by old coffee taste...




I got no less than THREE additions to our turtle collection, including this adorable handfelted one mom got on the streets of Santa Fe,



and Isabel loved the plaid dress we gifted her!



There were many more gifts given and received throughout the morning, but the greatest gift of all was both the joy of giving to our loved ones, and the presence of ALL the siblings at a Christmas for the first time in many years! After coming home from church on Christmas Eve we all sat around our dining table to eat some desserts (and maybe drink some wine and port) before heading to bed. Mom gave a toast to the love between family members and suggested that we all follow with our own toasts. We ended up making two trips around the table toasting to each other, to absent loved ones, to the trials and triumphs of the year past, and to our love for each other which has morphed and changed over the years but has never waned. It truly was a very, very merry Christmas.

Two miles!

The family photo Christmas 2014

Surprise!!! Again!!

Claudia's Surprise from Patrick Braga-Henebry on Vimeo.

Busy days and fun on facebook

Photos from Grandma's Surprise Visit

Sue posted these on Facebook and I got them from there! 

We don't know what was on Grandpa's eyes! 

Cousins and Aunt!

Sue took these beautiful wintery photos

Making Brazilian Food!

They left early and caught Isabel in MN before she departed for home.