3 C's in SLC: Comfort and Joy

For Christmas, Christina's brothers and sisters, mom and dad joined us in Salt Lake. Once everyone had arrived on Saturday, December 20 (much delayed by travel woes, of course), we convened at a condo that Christina's sister Lukie had rented in Park City. Brothers Robert and George started off the week's feasting by grilling some serious beef tenderloin.

View from Lukie's time-share

Carmen gets to know Tio George

Monday we visited Temple Square to see the lights—a beautiful sight. We'll post more pictures of this and other events as the siblings make theirs available.

Nativity scene in the temple reflecting pool

Grandpa Joe lends Carmen his gloves to keep her hands warm.

Tuesday we surprised Christina (as best we could) with a birthday dinner at Tuscany, a fine Italian restaurant. As you can imagine, being born on December 25 can mean that one's birthday is upstaged by someone else's, so we made sure to celebrate early and often.

Carmen chews a spoon for Tia Lori, Christina's sister, and Tia Tati, Christina's sister-in-law.

To round out our celebrations, we played a murder mystery game set, appropriately, in a ski resort called Cottonwood (Joe and Carmen's condo is in Cottonwood Heights). Everyone really got into character, as you can see from these incriminating photos.

Joe as private eye Madison "Madd" Westin poses with the muscle-bound bodygaurd Roberto Martine (played by Roberto Madrazo).

Flight attendant-cum-FBI operative Tiffany Enderly (Chiqui), bohemian double-agent Alicia Tomasini (Lukie), and ski shop owner-turned-coke dealer Buzzy "It Always Snows" Reinhart (George) trade accusations.

On Christmas Eve, Carmen made her theatrical debut as none other than Baby Jesus in our church's Christmas pageant. (Being Episcopalians, we saw nothing wrong with having a Baby Jesette, only one wise man, and Christina as a walking manger.) Here are some video highlights of the production:

Christina's family, in true Latin style, celebrates Christmas on the night of the 24th. The next morning we gathered again at Joe and Carmen's place in our jammies to help little Carmen open her gifts and to celebrate Christina's birthday for real. With about a foot of snow falling on Thursday alone, we certainly had a white Christmas.