Christmas Eve with Ommy & Poppy...

We kicked off our Christmas Eve celebration with a fun lunch at Ommy and Poppy's house. The weather was pretty mild so we got to spend a lot of time playing outside. The boys love the cabin that Poppy built and in the spirit of the movie "A Christmas Story" Adam got in some bb gun practice. Don't worry mom - he didn't shoot his eye out! 

We exchanged gifts and took lots of pictures. Harper was thrilled to receive a little piano that he had actually pointed out to Poppy in the store months back that he wanted - great memory Poppy! 

It was a great start to our Christmas Eve with more fun to come...

Kicking off the holidays....

After a weekend of post-Thanksgiving camping we were back home and ready to rid the house of pumpkins and usher in all the Christmas decor! It's always a fun few days decking the halls, picking out our tree, breaking out the Christmas jammies and firing up those mistletoe candles!

Once the house was decorated and the Christmas Spode was out the kids were welcomed, on December 1st, by their good buddy Al - their personal "Elf on the Shelf." He arrived with chocolate filled advent calendars and I was happy to see that Adam was still mystified and oh boy was Harper really into all the Christmas magic this year as well!

A good thing too since our second big activity on December 1 was going to visit Santa at Kathleen's office party - one of our favorite traditions! We weren't quite sure how Harper was going to react seeing as he had already begun expressing some concern about Santa - the whole "sneaking into the house" concept was a bit disconcerting to him. Alas, upon seeing Santa arrive he busted under the velvet rope and gave Santa a huge hug around his legs! It happened so fast I couldn't get a picture - but I'll never forget it. The boys both proceeded to enjoy their visits with Santa in his sleigh telling him all the things they were wishing for.

These are the moments that make the holiday season so awesome - and it was only just beginning!

Christmas Afternoon/Evening...

After our wonderful Christmas morning we got ourselves recharged (and the house cleaned up!) for round three of our Christmas celebration! My family arrived in time for us to share our traditional Christmas lunch - Chinese take-out - and it was just the fuel we needed to prep for the next round of gift opening - wowza! 

It was fun having a full house on Christmas day - even Auntie Anne was able to join us - we even had an extra dog in the house - Holly. Grandma brought everyone's stockings from her house filled with all the necessities - chap stick, lotion, floss - and some fun surprises as well - like Starbucks gift cards & fun new ornaments. I love that 35 years later I still get to open up stocking stuffers from my original stocking. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent opening gifts and playing with new toys while the Christmas carols played in the background and the fire warmed us all up.

For dinner we made a prime rib with Grandpa's famous mashed potatoes on the side and we surprised everyone with Christmas crackers at the dinner table - it was fun to see what random treasures were inside and everyone looked super festive in their paper crowns. 

It was a really fun, family & tradition filled day - another fabulous Christmas in the books.