Merry Christmas

Christmas is always a lot of fun at our house and it always starts on Christmas Eve. We spent quite a bit of the day baking, cleaning and getting ready for Grandma & Grandpa to come over. It's a tradition at the Wixom Zoo to have Cheesey Chicken soup for dinner in homemade bread bowls and then gorge ourselves on a whole mess of treats and snacks about an hour afterward.
We also read the Christmas story from Luke in the bible and act out the parts with the kids. This year Emma decided that if she couldn't be Mary she didn't want to participate. She cried, whined and finally decided that she'd pout in the corner of the couch. So, Grandpa decided that he'd be the angel and Grandma said she'd be the shepherd. That left Ian to be Joseph and Abbey to be Mary. I, of course, was the designated picture taker and Jeff read the story. He convinced Emma that sitting in the corner and pouting wasn't the best way to spend Christmas Eve and so she came over and helped him tell the story. I loved Grandma's shepherd and Gramp's angel. He said that he couldn't put the halo on his head because it would "hurt his hair." Hmmm... he doesn't have many hairs left so we'd better be kind to the ones that are there, I guess.
We ended by coloring in our ginormous T'was The Night Before Christmas coloring book (one page each year) and opening new pj's for the kids to wear. They all rushed off to bed so that Santa could come. I think all of the kids woke up at different times during the night. They all came in to let us know that Santa had been here and that his cookies, eggnog and the carrots for the reindeer were gone. Silly peekers - they were under strict instruction not to come down until Jeff went up to get them! Oh no, we got wake-up calls at 2:30, 3:15, 4:54 and then Jeff woke me up at 6:58 because it was officially time to get up. I figured that as long as the kids were still sleeping we could too. Apparently not. Personally, I think he was more excited than the kids were.
This morning was a lot of fun too. Everyone liked what they got - which I'm thankful for. It's nice to know that you guessed right when trying to figure out what the perfect gift would be. We're off to the folk's house tonight for dinner. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas - we love and miss those of you who are too far away to give a hug to.