Christmas in Michigan

Hello! Christmas was a little while ago, but we here at Rhi & Benner, Inc. haven't had a chance to post about our travels yet. For those who are curious, we went to Michigan to spend the holiday with Audrey Holtz, AKA Rhianwen's Grandma. She's 92 and still lives in the house that she raised her family in, alone! She's an amazing lady, so amazing in fact that pretty much the entire Holtz clan made it to Michigan just to hang out with her. Here's some photos from the splendid time.











It was so nice getting to see everyone: Chuck (Rhi's dad) and Gwenyth (Rhi's mom) came from Philly; Carol (Rhianwen's aunt) and Dana (her husband) came in from New York; Roger (Rhi's uncle) and Kathy (his wife) drove down from Ann Arbor; Sarah (Rhi's sister) and Steve (bro-in-law) came from San Francisco; The trio of cousins, Bridget, Margaret and Christine, made it in from Ann Arbor, Denver and Athens, GA, respectively. It's so great that everyone made an effort to be there and make it a special Christmas. What a nice way to spend the holiday!

On an interesting note, we flew into Detroit on Christmas day, landed about an hour just after the attempted terrorist attack. You'd think there would be some sort of pandemonium, but it was business as usual. We didn't even really realize how big of a deal it was until we saw the newspapers the next day. Crazy, huh? Thank God for keeping us safe.

Here are some more highlights (from Rhianwen) in addition to enjoying the wonderful company of family:
- Multiple games of scrabble at the dining room table
- A peaceful walk in the snow!!!
- Reading "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" by the fire aloud, taking turns
- Discovering the goodness of Bays English Muffins. Oh how I wish I could buy them in LA!
- Grandma's robust return from the "observation unit"
- Benner was excited to eat Chinese food
- Sharing our "Best of 2009" moments including one joyous surprise!!!

Yeah, it was awesome.

Our Christmas Letter

By now, many of you will have received our Christmas card and the accompanying letter. In case you're too lazy to read said letter, here is a spectacular dramatic reading by our friend Greg Jong. I do say, his British accent breathes a spot of life into it. Just push play!

Benner Letter by michaelgbenner

Holiday party extravaganza...

Last weekend we went to three Christmas parties. (We have pictures from two.) Here's our friend Mick. He's fantastic. You may know him as the voice of Disney's Kung Fu Panda. (That is, the soon-to-be released animated series on Nickelodeon, not the movie. That's Jack Black. Mick is not Jack Black.) He's pretty fancy.



We also went to the annual Rilesly's holiday party. Bo our favorite dog was there, along with some of my favorite Telepictures gals. Here we are sitting pretty:



Lucy, the hostess with the mostest even arranged an appearance by Santa. We couldn't help but snag a shot:



And there you have it!

Christmas time in Benner-fornia

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our apartment. Rhi and I recently got our tree out and decorated, and it looked so wonderful that we decided to take a nice family photo.


That's us with the kids. But that wasn't enough, Rhi decided we need to have a photo shoot.


Adorable, ain't she? Not to be outdone, I hopped in front of the tree too.


Not as cute as she is, I'll admit.

Our Christmas Card

By now, many of our readers have probably received a picture like this in the mail. It was our Christmas card, and we think it's really swell. Our friend Aaron, a talented photographer, took it along with a slew of other shots. We weren't expecting him to bring a bunch of professional equipment, big stand flashes and umbrellas and such, but that's what he did. We felt sort of like celebrities at a low-rent photo shoot, as Aaron picked off a bunch of shots and cars slowed to a roll and stared as they passed. Despite my eyes being slightly squinty due to the sun, Rhianwen thought the one above was cute enough to send out to family and friends.

This one, though, is my favorite shot from the day:

Oh, it is just so amazing... maybe some of you will get it in the mail soon enough...

A Very Benner Christmas

Usually we spend Christmas day rushing around to the houses of various families. A couple hours here, a couple there, onto the next place and by the end of the day we're pretty exhausted. So despite being so far away from our families and friends this year, we were looking forward to celebrating with just us this year. So with our tiny little tree decorated and our lights up around the apartment, we settled in for a good night's sleep on Christmas eve.

The next morning we woke up, read some scripture, sang some Christmas hymns (we're not going on tour anytime soon), ate breakfast and admired our little Christmas scene:

Then we opened up all the presents, and this is what our scene turned into:

With all those great gifts, we were happy, and this is what we turned into:

That night, we had our friends Chapman and Becca over for Christmas dinner since, like us, they do not have family in LA. Becca's husband Ryan was originally going to come as well, but he had to fly to Seattle for his Grandmother's funeral at the last minute (Becca had to work and was flying there the following day).

So we cooked London broil with a Gorgonzola cream sauce and mashed potatoes with caramelized shallots. Chapman brought prosciutto-wrapped asparagus and Christmas cookies, and Becca came right from work with a fantastic bottle of wine, a spicy Syrah that complimented the meal perfectly. We all proceeded to eat, drink and be merry, and then we retired to the couch where we took this photo:

Eventually everyone left, and Rhi and I collapsed onto the bed in a food-related coma. It was a good Christmas.