Celebrating Christmas- Part 5

Christmas morning arrived! As a kid, I was an early riser and was even earlier on Christmas morning. Now I feel sorry for my parents and grandparents. We were usually done opening gifts before the sun ever came up!  Part of my enthusiam lied in the fact that if I wasn't the first to call our grandparents to come watch us open gifts, they would go to one of my cousins' houses first and we would have to wait longer! :) Well, since all of my siblings live closer to my parents, it's a given that my kids have to wait on Mamaw & Papaw to visit the cousins before they come to our house to watch the girls open their gifts.  I love how it works out! The girls actually sleep in (a little) and we watch Christmas movies together while preparing some brunch before everyone arrives. 

Alex is the one awake before dawn now, and he is always so good to video the girls coming down to see the goodies left behind by Santa... only problem is he didn't realize the video camera was in night mode so all of our early morning videos have a green and gray hue! :)

Before we open gifts, we read the Christmas story, pray together, and then the girls sing a song. This year, they chose to sing Joy to the World.

Snacks are always a big hit!

I love how oblivious Brielle is in these next pictures!
The big girls are busy emptying their stockings and she opened about 9 bandaids. :)

She received a ladybug xylophone from Santa. So cute!

When we were in China, we had one of our favorite shop owners paint their names for them.

A new ballerina-inspired outfit for our ballerina.

And a panda towel for our little panda.

A pink harmonica. Such joy from a $3 gift. :)



The main gift Braylee had been asking for was an Ipod Touch. She rarely mentioned anything else...just an Ipod touch (with no case because she wanted to pick out the case herself).  We decided to pull a "red-rider-BB-gun" scenario from The Christmas Story movie on her.  She had noticed as we started opening gifts that Brynna had more gifts than her. I simply mentioned that it's not about the number of gifts but what's inside. She didn't ask about it again.  We were completely done opening gifts and had started cleaning up the mess when we asked Braylee if she received everything she had wished for. She had never once complained about not getting her ipod touch so it made it even more fun for us to surprise her! I thought she would squeal the moment she saw the small package hiding behind the satellite box but she told us later that she didn't want to get her hopes up if it was something else. :)  Needless to say, when she opened it, she was one happy little girl!

That evening, Alex's brother and two of his cousins and their families came over for a relaxing evening of leftovers and games...well as relaxing as an evening with 12 little ones running through the house can be! 

 We had an amazing Christmas season! I prayed all 3 of the girls would be healthy this first year with Brielle home and none of them even had a runny nose!  We are always thankful for our family but we do enjoy getting to spend the extra time with them at holidays!  The girls finished off their Christmas fun with a sleepover on the living room floor...well at least the two older ones did. :)