Christmas Morning

We had a very nice Christmas morning. The children didn't get up terribly early and everyone was in good humor...always a bonus. We like a very orderly Christmas morning with only one present at a time being opened. We took our time and enjoyed each persons gifts as they opened them.

Here is our front room with the presents around the tree and the stockings on the couch.


The Littles do not like waiting for breakfast, so we went ahead and fed them before we opened presents. Brian, Bess and I just had our morning cup of tea. I would like to come up with something easy and yummy to have on Christmas morning. We have made breakfast souffle type things, but that takes too long to bake. I'm going to give it some thought for next year.

Can you see Dan's face in this picture? He was just too excited. It was so cute.

We open the stockings first. There are always fun goodies to be discovered.

In years past, we have taken each of the children to the dollar store to buy for each other. This year they drew names. This worked out much better as we allowed them to spend a certain amount and each child got a nicer gift from a sibling.

Bessie had Rachel and bought her a nice set of Prismacolor pencils and an art pad. Rachel was thrilled as she loves anything to do with art.

The only thing Hannah told us she wanted was a Fairy Barbie. She was so excited to find it under the tree.

Dan just liked opening the presents. I'm not sure he even looked at most of them until he was done. When he finally took time to look over his gifts, he especially liked the chunky action figures. These are great toys for him as they are just his size and almost indestructible.

My big gift was a new sewing machine. I actually knew about the machine last week as Brian did not want to get it without me picking it out. I did not use it for my tablecloth project and he wrapped it up and put it under the tree. I can't wait to use it. I have had my old machine for 20 years. It has been a good machine, but I was so happy to finally upgrade.

Here we are enjoying our gifts and relaxing. Each person looked over their gifts a bit more carefully. Not sure we will find the floor for a while.

After all the gifts were opened, Brian and I told the kids there was one more gift in the closet. We downplayed the whole thing. We had Bessie and Gabe open it and they were totally floored that it was a Wii. We had talked to them before Christmas about taking some of the allotted money for Christmas and buying a Wii, but that would mean fewer gifts. After a lot of discussion and coming to the conclusion that maybe the Little's wouldn't enjoy it as much as the bigger folks and wouldn't understand the trade off of the cost, it was decided not to get one.

Brian's recent trip had been extended about a week longer than expected, so he decided to surprise the family and he bought a Wii while in Hawaii.

The look on Bessie and Gabe's face when they opened it was perfect! (This was not a staged photo.) I love it when we really surprise them with something totally unexpected.

This has turned out to be a wonderful gift for the whole family. We have been having such a great time. The Wii is a very active participatory game, no sitting on the couch working your thumbs with this game.