We began our Christmas-filled day posing the kids for our annual Christmas card. The day ended with Christmas lists tucked safely in stockings for the elves. Sometime in between, peppercorn burgers seemed ideal.

We use our digital camera for two things: taking pictures of the kids and taking pictures of our food. Today, we do both.

Our traditional Christmas activities begin shortly after Thanksgiving with the purchase of a Christmas tree. We chose this year’s tree on Thursday and decorated it yesterday. Today, we dress the kids up in their finest seasonal outfits and take pictures for Christmas cards.

How anyone managed to take Christmas pictures before the advent of digital cameras is beyond us. We sit the kids down in a pose, tell them to smile, take several dozen shots, then give them a break while we delete the obviously bad pictures, making room for the next pose. After repeating this process five or six times, we have a total of two photos that will do.

Once we have a good Christmas card picture, we changed into our regular clothes for the drive down to the Baltimore farmers’ market. There are not many more weekends for the market, so we enjoy it while it lasts. Before heading home, we stopped by Grammy’s and Boppy’s for a visit and to check out the Christmas decorations.

Immediately upon entering Grammy’s and Boppy’s, our daughter noticed that the elves had visited. The elves are supposed to visit the morning of St. Nicholas Day (tomorrow). They retrieve the kids’ lists early enough for Santa to have time to assemble their gifts and leave a few treats in the stockings. The elves also tend to visit grandparents for some reason—this year, they came early.

No harm was done. The kids were happy to have some extra, unexpected treats and did not question the premature arrival. While visiting, we helped to set up Grammy’s and Boppy’s brand new artificial tree—not quite a traditional activity, but the kids had fun. They also enjoyed playing with Grammy’s Christmas village. The village is intended for display only, but it got handled plenty today.

The remainder of the afternoon was marked by shopping and a rather disappointing Ravens loss. As the afternoon wore on, burgers seemed ideal.

We tried to re-create the Chili’s peppercorn burger that we both like so much. Chris was not sure that it was the same, but we both agreed that it was very good.

Finally, the kids put the finishing touches on their notes to Santa. And the Christmas season has begun in our house.

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