christmas eve. we spent the day at my parents house then came home that evening and the kids exchanged their gifts to each other. the kids did this last year too, but honestly it was a long process as we had to go to different stores, talk through practical choices etc.
so this year i set up some guidelines. actually just one. the gift had to come from walgreens. isn’t that funny?? but it worked! it wasn’t out of my way, so if i was running errands i would take a couple kiddos with me. and since there is a walgreens every 5 miles, we just picked one and stayed on course for the rest of the errands.
they used their own money and i guided the decisions. they have a ball with it.
dancy had little dubs name. she bought him a little dog that walks with an attached remote. he. loves. it. he named it ‘doggy’.
i love this picture! he jumped on his sister and hugged her so hard….we were just all so happy for him. his happiness is contagious.
the kiddos also open one gift from us. the traditional gift of pajamas.
they all rushed upstairs and put on their christmas jams.
then, the girls surprised me with a special gift they had made. a coffee mug cozy (that deanie made all by herself) and an awesome table mat. they cut and sewed all of this! my mother in law guided and quilted it. they also wrote me a special note.
that gets me every time. i treasure their written notes of admiration, encouragement and love. blessed. i am so so so blessed.
christmas morning!!!! dancy asked me repeatedly the night before, ‘what time are we getting up?’, ‘when can we go downstairs?’ etc. etc.
i really needed to be showered and ready first so we said 8:00am we can go down. this was at 8:01am.
strained necks all around from smiling so hard!
so to disguise who’s gift was who’s this year i came up with something super fun for the kids! i gave them each a character from narnia. they didn’t know who they were though.
so presents started to appear under the tree for susan, peter, the professor, lucy, mr. tumnus and edmund. they were not allowed to touch the presents so it was hilarious to listen to them trying to sort out the logic behind who was who.
they didn’t know before hand but i did not include little A in the gift exchange and instead included mr. daddy.
so this picture is the kids picking up a present that they thought was theirs.
this bundle of cuteness just soaked it all in.
and finally this is the fun that settled in as the sun came up.
