Merry Christmas

What a great day today was. After about a month of planning, Christmas came and went so fast. Even though I still wasn't as organized as I would have liked, I really enjoyed today. You would think that since I have been out of work since November 1st that I would have been super organized. Not so. I'm using the excuse that it has been a crazy two months and hoping that next year will be calmer and not so hectic. We'll see.

Anyhow, this year we had Mark, Janelle, and Mason; Janelle's parents Stacia and Joe, and sister Amy; Big Baba and Dot. My Dad and Marge were not feeling well and weren't able to be with us. Kris, Toby and Marley were with Toby's family for dinner but came for dessert.



Here are some pictures of the day.

Amy and her dad Joe.



Mark, Dot, and Big Baba.



Could this be Santa coming down from the chimney?



I guess it was just one of the grandpas.



Stacia, Mason and Janelle. Mason started off the day with cute little tan corduroy pants but didn't seem to want to keep them on!





Opening presents was chaotic as usual.







One of the gifts that Mark really wanted Mason to have was this football helmet and jersey. He said Mason "needed" it because he kept trying to get his Build-A-Bear's helmet on. Someone said he looked like ET running around with this on! The helmet was big so half the time he couldn't see where he was going.



Izzy kept getting into the bag of wrapping paper. Minnie kept her distance all day.



***About the first picture, the Nativity...

A few years ago, my friend Liz from work drew my name for the gift exchange for our Christmas party. She gave me a Willow Tree figure, the angel holding a ball. I loved it, and believe it or not she drew my name the next year and gave me the figure holding a lamb (the tall one with the green robe on the left). At that point I decided that I loved these Willow tree figures and I wanted to collect them. Over the years the kids have given me several of them, some of which I recently found out are actually part of the whole Nativity set.

Last year I thought it would be nice to collect the Nativity, maybe one figure a year. Kristen checked into this and found that you could only buy the starter Nativity as a whole. She asked Toby, Mark and Janelle if they wanted to go in with her and get it for me for Christmas. I absolutely love it. I think that I am going to keep it up all year! Thanks, everyone (including Liz).

Merry Christmas!!