Christmas Festivities

We had a lovely Christmas Eve. We had our usual party at my parents' house. We sang and drank cocktails and exchanged gifts and made merry. I am so lucky to have this tradition.
We went home around eight and put the kids right to bed. They were thrilled to go and were asleep very quickly. Michael and I had a sort of an argument that soured the evening a bit, but we rallied and thrilled getting the house ready for Santa.
Christmas morning Martha and Clark came over from the hippy house in the dark and were standing ready with the camera when they boys tumbled out of their rooms when their clocks turned green. They loved their toys. Santa brought them hats, coloring books, remote control cars, make your own lightsabers and real noise making light up light sabers. Michael built a fire (it was cold outside) and I put on Christmas carols.
I made breakfast and then we loaded up bags and bags of presents and took them over to my parents' house. We all laid our stockings on the big table and then everyone took turns going around with their sacks and stuffing everyone's stockings to the brim. We all poured ourselves bloody marys and mimosas and then sat down to open the stockings. It was so much fun and we got some really great things. Then we spent about two and half hours opening presents. We do it slowly in our family, taking turns and watching each person open their gift until turning our attention to the next eldest who gets to open the next one. I love this tradition and I love getting to see what each person received and their reaction to it. Our family received season passes to Schlitterbahn. I got a briggs and riley backpack I've been lusting after, some dishwasher safe, non breakable wine glasses (with wine to fill them) and some really great books as well as a ton of other great stuff. I must have been a pretty good girl this year.
Everyone was happy and cheerful with their new gifts. Dad got a trip to Cuba and he was so excited! I gifted my grandparents with a photo book I had made with pictures of all their grandchildren and great grandchildren. It was fun for all.
When the present opening wound down, we had a big lunchtime Christmas breakfast and then we all played with Kade's new Kinect.
After a while I loaded the van and drove over to our house where I quickly spent some alone time unpacking all the gifts, putting every thing away where it went and cleaning up. The family arrived soon after and Martha and Clark pitched in to help cook Christmas dinner and Michael and the boys built a star wars model.
Mom and Uncle Larry and Tiffany and I (and our families) made the whole Christmas dinner and took it over to my grandparent's house where they hosted. We had about 25 people for dinner and it turned out really yummy. The kids played outside after dinner for a while with cousins they rarely see, but soon it just turned into kids sobbing in the yard, so we loaded them up and took them home.
They gratefully went to bed early and so did we. We got up this morning and took down Christmas and cleaned the house from top to bottom. We did some laundry and a bunch of errands and then we packed for Taos. We leave early in the morning for our vacation. My parents gifted all of us with plane tickets to Taos for the new year. We are very excited and can't wait for our vacation. You'll hear from me next from Taos. Merry Christmas, ya'll.