The Eighth Day of Giftmas (8 of 12)

While her brother was busy mowing through his own rawhide candy cane, Líle was promenading around showing hers off to everyone. It was literally the Best Thing Ever.

The Seventh Day of Giftmas (7 of 12)

We all gathered around our massive red counter for the Dawn of the Stockings. This picture was actually taken by yours truly, so doubtless has many issues of composition, lighting, and et cetera.
Líle needed help with her stocking. She's such a gentle little girl when she isn't knocking people over at the door and licking them to death.
'Dolon, on the other hand, yanked out the best part of his stocking and ran away with it in about three seconds.

The Sixth Day of Giftmas (6 of 12)

'Dolon knew exactly what to do with his gifts this year. He was so excited he was vibrating.
Líle was much more tentative, and needed a lot of encouragement to mouth the presents while 'Dolon was opening them. She never really got it. Luckily, 'Dolon was able to destroy enough wrapping paper and boxes for the both of them.
Even the voracious 'Dolon needed some help getting to the juicy stuffed bits.
I never get tired of watching 'Dolon go for a package. But it does reemphasize how we can never again puts gifts under our tree.

The Fifth Day of Giftmas (5 of 12)

Scylla doesn't need anything for Christmas other than other people's gifts. Here she stalks through her natural habitat hunting stray ribbons and slobbering on tissue paper.
Molpe, on the other hand, really likes her tiny little stocking full of catnip and mice. We still haven't solved her mouse issue, but this year we got some mice that are about 90% similar to her inaccessible favorite, and with a little pinch of drugs they went over very well.

The Fourth Day of Giftmas (4 of 12)

So this was our Christmas Eve table, served on actual Ukrainian china from the vast dusty recesses of our basement. I think that my stand-out favorite was actually the beet borscht. 2008 was my Year of the Beet -- I cooked with it and ate it a lot, especially compared to its near-zero incidence in prior years. Anyway, NDM's borscht was fantastic.

The Third Day of Giftmas (3 of 12)

NDM made a slew of different kinds of varenyky for a traiditonalesque Ukrainian meal on Christmas Eve. There were potato varenyky, sauerkraut varenyky, and plum varenyky. These are basically pierogi, except less Polish. They were all boiled, but some were also fried afterward.
LEM helped NDM with the construction of the kolach. Alright, the all-knowing Wikipedia pidgeonholes this as a pastry, but for our purposes this Ukrainian bread is more like a babka. The girls constructed it from a series of braids...
...which were laid into some springform pans, and eventually produced...
...a massive tower of baked goods. Sorry about the exposure. For future reference, it is impossible for 6 people to come anywhere near to consuming something like this over the course of a week.

The Second Pictures of Giftmas (2 of 12)

There was lots and lots of baking -- so much that I was barely allowed in the kitchen. My only role was to pinch hit for kneading the bulichka. I've been merciful and chosen a fairly innocuous photograph. The manufacture of this sweet roll calls for squishing pats of butter into a huge mass of dough by hand, and I have some really unappetizing closeups of that which illustrate the strange sensibilities of my photographer.

The First Pictures of Giftmas (1 of 12)

We got a slightly larger tree this year, and so were able to break out a significant portion of our ornaments. The puppies were both very excited about the balsam-Frasier hybrid.
Due to the tree's location, we intelligently didn't utilize it for actual gifts. Wouldn't want the dogs to accidentally, say, burst a pipe while rooting through wrapping paper. For example.
'Dolon and Líle were fantastically excited to see my parents again. Their whole week was a blur of illegal foods and excessive licking.