I had a super-fun Christmas this year, thanks to Sundari (my aunt) who offered to host a gathering at her house, a large Victorian she shares with a few other people. It is a perfect place for a party, with plenty of room for wandering and chasing toddler nephews.

The lucky folks on my Christmas list this year got journals with either collages or photographs on the front and back covers. Here is my favorite collage out of the whole bunch. The front cover had a photo of sea lions, and this was on the back:

Chuck and Bev (the grandparents) pitched in with me to buy a fancy furnished Green Dollhouse for Jasper. Here we are assembling it. Jasper does know how to use a screwdriver, but he kind of lost interest in helping us once we got everything out of the box.

Here are a few shots from outside, where Jasper and Achoo (that’s what he calls Esther) were doing something entertaining with a hula hoop. Later, Jasper commanded me to take pictures of the moon.

Not pictured: the Christmas spa experience in Sundari’s lovely woodstove-heated room, in which Jasper took off his clothes and insisted we rub him down with nice-smelling lotions and salves before he ran around singing, dancing, collapsing tragically like an opera star, and mourning his own fictional death.