Patterson Christmas 1998


The Northern California Patterson Clan started celebrations on Christmas Eve, with the seven of us plus David's girlfriend Sara.

We started with dinner at Inn Kensington. Did Gracie order wine? Her clothes were given to her by the Staffords.

Dinner was followed by a visit to the Patterson Homestead to open one "surprise" present.
(The only surprise was the color of the pajamas.)  Note the popularity of those pajamas on Christmas day.
A few snapshots from that evening:



Christmas morning started at 8:30 with Grandpa Dave making waffles for breakfast, with help from others. Andrew, Mike, and Linda (still in their new PJs) add fruit to their waffles. Note: We used a curtain and a child gate to prevent Andrew from raiding the presents underneath the Christmas tree.

Here are how things looked before we opened the curtain:



We then opened the gateway, and let gang in.

Linda made cardboard "gingerbread" house for Andrew, including indoor decorations. Andrew ran straight for it, and it was a big hit. He even invited others inside. It was similar to a cardboard house that she made for Mike when he was Andrew's age.

A nearby table had a real gingerbread house, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, See's candy,  chocolate pretzels, and fruit, although we're not sure how the fruit got there.

Then we started opening presents. To our surprise, Andrew cooperated fairly well, giving presents to people and then helping them open them, rather than vice versa. For some reason we can't understand, three times he picked a present on his own and give them to the right person without being coached. I don't recall him picking the wrong one. He also spent a lot of time helping himself to chocolate pretzels. A few of the pictures show chocolate smudges on Andrew and, alas, on the camera lens.

A few highlights:

Around 12:30,  Andrew, Gracie, Heather, and Mike went to Heather's folks for Christmas II. The rest of us went to the movies to see "Little Voice." That evening we all got together again to play games, to start solving a jigsaw puzzle, and to eat, as we didn't get enough in the last 24 hours.