Christmas

We had a lovely, if totally overwhelming, Christmas.  We kicked off the formal festivities with the traditional grandparent lunch.  

 After the kids spent Christmas Eve at the jelly bean factory, we got them dressed and ready for church.  In the interim we swapped out our refrigerator and dishwasher while getting ready to host 33 for dinner.  I going to go on record as not recommending doing those two things on the same day.

 We started dinner with our traditional Cheese Course D'Eric.

 We had bourbon marinated pork tenderloin and managed to squeeze all 33 in our back room.

 After dinner we had the usual reading of the Night After Christmas though Eric did the honors this year not Zeke.  We also added a new tradition - "Ding Dong and Dash" - a game played by our guests and one of my daughters (ehhem - ANNA) while the adults were busy totally neglecting them.

 Christmas morning we woke up to a very cold house.  Turns out our heater was broken - the case of the cracked Nest has yet to be solved.  The girls woke up early.  The boys slept in until 7:30.  The girls nearly lost it but let their brothers get their beauty rest.

 Santa had been there.

He brought each kid a scooter...

 and some other stuff.

 Most importantly, he brought them a teepee.  Big hit.

 As were the scooters.

 Conveniently we had a full scooter race track courtesy of the party the night before.

 Sarah Jane was pretty excited about her new clothes - some boots, jeans and a vest (from Nana and Papa) - we might be entering a new era.