The Obligatory Pictures In Front of the Tree

We had a very relaxing Christmas at home. I love staying at home for Christmas and declared to my family that we weren't going anywhere, but everyone was welcome. And so they came. We celebrated early with Darren's family as they were going to International Falls to have Christmas with the in-laws. My parents stayed the longest ever arriving on Friday and leaving the afternoon of Christmas Day. We did family Christmas on Friday night. Reid and Anissa are at fun ages. Anissa just wanted paper and boxes and Reid loved everything and squeeled with delight after opeing every gift. Except the gift we gave him, which was a perfect Reid-sized backpack that he declared as being "just a little bit too big!" Eli and Sadie loved having their cousins over and were excited to watch them open their presents because for the whole month of December the kids have been finding toys and books that they declared they'd outgrown and wrapped them up for Reid and Anissa. Reid and Anissa had a lot of presents to open mostly because my kids loved wrapping up presents!

We spent Christmas Eve Day over at a friends house iceskating. I still can't get over how wonderful the ice is and how much I love iceskating. We let Eli open up one of his gifts early as he had a new pair of skates under the tree. Little did Dennis know that he also had a brand new pair of skates wrapped under the tree, but we made him wait. We went to Mass and both of my children fell asleep during the service which was at 5PM. We came home and had tacos for supper, which may sound a bit untraditional but it was perfect. Fast, tasty and my kids didn't complain! Then we opened presents and promptly went to bed as NORAD was telling us that Santa was in Illinois so we figured we'd better hurry!!

Christmas morning came early with the sounds of "Santa was here! Santa was here!" The kids opened presents and Sadie declared it a pajama day. We had Swedish Meatballs for lunch and watched the kids play wii which is what Santa brought for the kids. It was a nice relaxing, no stress kind of Christmas. Just the way it should be.