Christmas 2009

As things are settling down and we are gearing up for the new year, I figured I'd sit down and write about our Christmas.

This year we stayed home.  It disappointed most of our family but we wanted Emi to have her very 1st Christmas at home.  Some people might think this is a little selfish but there are a few things I must inform you of:

1.  I HATE to travel during the holidays.  I love taking vacations, but I grew up never traveling anywhere for Thanksgiving or Christmas.  My extended family took turns hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve but afterward, you always returned to the comfort of your home and bed.  Old habits die hard.  Plus it's nice not having to convince your children that Santa indeed will find you at someone else's house.
   
2. Eriks' 1st Christmas was not at home.  He was born exactly 1 week before Christmas Eve and we were stuck in Oklahoma in a hotel.  No tree, no presents...no fun.  We were very fortunate that Lane's parents, sister, brother & SIL and their kids were able to drive up for Christmas Day.  But then we had to deal with finding somewhere to go for Christmas dinner.  We ended up at Hooters.  Yes, you read that right...Hooters.  So my son had his very 1st Christmas Day dinner at Hooters.  We vowed after our next adoption we wouldn't be away from home for that child's 1st Christmas. 

We went to the 4pm mass at our church and it was crazy packed.  They had a 2nd mass going on over at Eriks school at the same time.  Lane had to park at the elementary school down the road because 1/2 an hour before church began, the parking lots were already to capacity.  The school parking lot almost was too!

We had a nice Italian dinner of mushroom lasagna, salad and garlic bread.  I wanted something good but also wouldn't take me all night to make.  We attempted to get Christmas photos of the kids in their nice clothes but it wasn't too successful.  At one point Emi decided she was going to lay on the hearth of the fireplace in protest.  Maybe we'll get the kids dressed again while our tree is still up and try again.  

Eriks came into our room at about 6:30am and we made him crawl into bed because Emi was not awake yet and we weren't going to wake her.  She woke up about 7:30 and the chaos began.  The photos below are what our living room looked like after we put out the gifts and Santa showed up.

 Santa left the kids a thank you note for the milk and cookies the kids left him.  I'm sure they were delicious (wink, wink). 

So we started opening presents at about 7:45ish and finished at about 11:30.  It took so long because we had to take periodic breaks for the kids to have a few minutes playing with some of the stuff they got and because we needed to eat breakfast too.  So here are the photos of the kids opening up and playing with presents as well as a photo of their haul from us parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles & cousins and Santa!

 

Last but not least, a few photos of Lane and I on Christmas morning opening up our gifts.  I got Lane a new espresso/cappuccino maker.  He bought his in 1994 while at AC school in LR.  I got this super cool craft organization system I've wanted for awhile.  Unfortunately all I have right now is the photo because it's on backorder.

I hope all of you had a wonderful and very Merry Christmas!