Christmas Highlights

I know it's nearly the New Year, but really, who needs another holiday so close to Christmas anyway? I'm about holiday'd and treated out. So why bring Christmas back up? Because I have nothing better to do on New Year's Eve!

Anyway, we were able to spend Christmas with my side of the family this year. We really enjoyed participating in Christmas Eve traditions and feeling the spirit of Christ the night before Christmas.

Christmas day, however, was a whole different ball game. Here are some highlights:

-On Christmas Eve"Santa" visited us and brought everyone Christmas PJ's. Parks and Maddie were a little afraid of him until they found out he had presents. Then they were nice and friendly.

-Parks woke up at 3 a.m. Christmas morning. He swore he just couldn't sleep any more. It was all I could do to get him to think about something other than Santa so he could catch a few more hours of sleep.

-We managed to hold the kids off until after breakfast at 8 in the morning. From there on, it was present city. I think next year the kids are only allowed to have 3 presents total. I couldn't believe what a haul they got! Present opening literally lasted 3 hours. Of course they did stop to play with each toy as it was opened, but still.

-One of the first presents Maddie opened was a package of batteries for a toy yet to be opened. She responded, nearly in tears, saying "That's not a present, that's batteries!"

-We did a present exchange where each member of the family got to pick a present from a stack and then open it. Then the next person could steal the previous present or pick a new one. Parks ended up with a gigantic talking My Little Ponly. He was crestfallen. He started crying and screaming all at the same time, "I HATE THAT PRESENT!" Luckily some kind soul sacrificed their present so he wasn't stuck with the "girl" present.

It was a good day and we really enjoyed being with family. And finally, here are some pictures and videos from the big day:

We put the kids to work making Christmas Eve dinner.

Some of Parks' favorites:

Is it Parks or Spiderman? Hard to tell

Maddie loved:

Something from Maddie's list:

Here's what Parks thinks:

Hope you had a Merry Christmas too!