On 12/23 we got ready for our trip to PA by making lots of cookies! My favorite chocolate ginger and salted chocolate chip shortbread, along with decorated sugar cookies this year at Blaine’s insistence (he says he likes to make them, not eat them).

Christmas was going to be a lot smaller this year because the extended Mahoney clan had all gotten together in November for Clare’s wedding, so the Hank Mahoneys were spending the holiday in California, and the Jim/Jane/Peter Mahoneys were gathering in DC. That left the Ingeborg Road crowd to celebrate on our own but we were determined to keep up the bowling tradition, and Blaine suggested starting a new one — the “Mahoney Cup” Mario Kart tournament.

We woke up early on 12/24 to drive down to PA and we were all ready to head directly to the bowling alley, but it turned out it didn’t open until noon! So we started the day with the Mario Kart Tournament. Here’s Group 1 — Sarah, Uncle Fran, Josie, and Maeve.

Group 2 is not pictured since I was a participant! It was me, Andrew, Uncle Tim, and Nate. Lastly we had Group 3 featuring Blaine, Aunt Molly, Mom-Mom, and Aunt Liz.

The winners from each group went into a final round and Sarah emerged victorious, the first ever champion of the Christmas Eve Mahoney Cup.

Blaine awarded Sarah the “Mahoney Cup” which was an actual cup filled with chocolates — she got first pick and then all participants got to enjoy the chocolates.

After the racing we had a delicious lunch with Liz’s sister’s family, of pasta and meatballs.

Then after lunch we had the traditional Mahoney bowling. Sarah said that this is her favorite part about Christmas! We need to take her bowling more.

Uncle Fran scored a record high 172 (under the name Andrew)!

Then it was back to Ingeborg Road for a Christmas Eve dinner of ham and mac and cheese. We saved the ham hock to take back to Larchmont for our New Year’s Day good luck stew.

The scene on Christmas morning!

Christmas dinner ended up being a pretty large group with the Ingeborg crowd, our four, Fran, Liz’s sister’s fam, and two of Tim and Liz’s friends with their kids. I don’t even know what the total was, but there was plenty of food and dessert to go around.

The day after Christmas we went to the Franklin Institute with Tim and his three kids and Uncle Fran! It was a special moment for me taking our kids to the giant heart, which I loved when I was a kid.

There were lots of new exhibits too, including this one on the brain with a climbing area the kids loved. They even talked Uncle Fran into joining them inside!

We ran out of time and didn’t get to see all the exhibits so we’ll need to come back sometime! From there we headed back to NY — Merry Christmas, everyone!