Merry Christmas

 

We had a very merry Christmas.  We spent a nice Christmas Eve at my parents’ house with Josh & Eliza, Chris & Rebecca and their kids.  We had a yummy meal, sang some songs, read Luke 2 and opened pj’s.  We got home and eventually got our kids wound down long enough for them to fall asleep.  First they had to to set out cookies and egg nog for Santa and oats, celery and apples for the reindeer. 

We tell them they can get up at 7 and wait for us to put the finishing touches together.  Ben and Nate woke up around 5:30 and could not go back to sleep.  They were both wide eyed with anticipation of the wonders awaiting them in the next room.  They kept creeping into our room to look at the clock.  We’d hear them whisper, “it says 6:03” and then run down the hall back to their room.  It was a long few hours, but 7 finally rolled around.  The girls were already awake too, so we just woke Joshua up.  They were all so excited about everything and are so cute to thank us a bazillion times for everything.  All but Joshy, that is, once he discovered a few treats in his stocking he wasn’t interested in anything else. 

I was really touched this year by our kids’ enthusiasm for giving this year.  Abby was constantly asking for extra jobs she could do to earn money to buy her siblings gifts.  We had them draw names, but they all ended up giving something to everyone and then something extra special for the sibling they drew.  Abby worked hard to save money to buy something for everyone.  Nate has a class store at school at the end of each month which they get to spend fake money they earned from their reading minutes.  If they read 200 minutes that month they get 2 fake dollars to go toward things donated to their class store.  He carefully picked something out for each of his siblings.  I was impressed with what he got for everyone.  Anna had money from babysitting and loved picking things out for everyone.  Even Ben got into the spirit by drawing pictures for everyone.  It was all really cute.

Back to that morning, Santa left each child something big and unwrapped, then we took turns opening the other presents.  Lots of happy squeals.

I love these kiddos.

After all the excitement, the big kids reveled in their loot and Brennan, Joshy and I went back to bed.   After naps, we cleaned up and headed back over to my parents’.  It was an exhausting, fun, sweet day.  Can’t believe it’s over!