Christmas

What a great Christmas! We are at my mom and dad's this week, and were at their house for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Christmas Eve we had some special people for dinner, some friends of mom and dad's, and a cherished family member, my dad's cousin Irene. What a fun time talking, laughing and thoroughly enjoying each other's company. Elise was a great host, engaged everyone in conversation and was very entertaining. Anja got tired fast and went to bed halfway through dinner. After dinner Elise opened two gifts, a barn set from my mom and dad (she loved it!) and a game which some friends had given her (she really wanted to play but I still had not figured out the directions by her bed time...it could have been I was having too much fun visiting with everyone to really focus on reading the directions :). We set out cookies for Santa (the first year Elise has wanted to do that), then she was off to bed. I have to say, it is nice to be able to threaten that "you have to stay in bed tonight or Santa won't come!" After that it was more visiting and laughing, then wrapping presents. We got to bed after midnight. Around 4:00 am I sneaked upstairs to set out some Santa presents for Jason, my mom and dad, then went back to bed until about 6:00, when Anja decided she wanted to get up bright and early on Christmas morning.

Christmas was a great day! This was the first Christmas Elise understood the full meaning of Santa leaving gifts, and looked genuinely surprised when she saw that the previously empty stockings were now stuffed with things, and there were presents that hadn't been there before!

We opened presents, and loved watching Elise and Anja. Anja really caught on to the opening gift process. Before long she parked herself under the tree and started opening every package she could get her hands on. There were a couple where we had to track down the paper she ripped off to read the tag and see who it belonged to. She got furious when we took her away and would not let her rip something open.

Around noon my aunt, uncle and cousins came, and that was a new round of fun. With four little kids around, the gift opening got a little wild, but they had a great time and that is what it is all about!

My mom and dad gave Elise a mini trampoline, and it has provided endless fun. She has now started jumping from a stool onto the tramp, sometimes she lands on her feet and sometimes she chooses to land on her butt. She is burning off the energy! Elise had a great time showing her cousin Gavin how to jump.

We so enjoyed both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and are forever thankful that we have families to love and who love us and who we have great times with.