We had a wonderful Christmas this year. We began our celebrations with hosting our annual Sunday School Christmas party. Several people couldn't be here, but we still had fun.
Then it was time to participate in the Walk Through Bethlehem that I told you about in my last post.
The boys show off their team spirit
All the girls
Since Christmas fell on Sunday this year and our extended family comes to our house for lunch on Christmas day, we decided to do something a little different. We actually opened presents on Christmas Eve morning. When Bubba was little, J and I would exchange gifts after Bubba was down for the night on Christmas Eve. Then a few years ago, we began letting him open his gifts on Christmas Eve night as well, just so Christmas morning wouldn't be so rushed. He asked me if we would do the same this year and I told him I thought so, but we planned to surprise him. I went and woke him up on Saturday morning and told him to get up and lets go open gifts. He was pretty groggy and it took a minute to sink in, but he finally jumped up and headed down pretty quick. He was excited!
Pumpkin was pretty excited too! She just got 3 things - a small play yard with swing and slide, a red wagon and a crocheted baby doll. She kept walking around looking at it and saying "Yea!" while clapping her hands. Just precious! 
Bubba was pleased with his haul. His big gift was an XB*X 360. We've all had fun playing with it.
After opening gifts, J crawled back in bed with Pumpkin for a little while. He had stayed up till 4:30 am putting together her toys and wrapping my gifts. We forgot how long it takes to do those things!!! The playard box claimed that it was a 20 minute assembly, NOT! I helped him until 2 am when Pumpkin woke up, probably from all of our banging, LOL! So I laid down with her and fell asleep, so J had to finish the wagon solo.
We then ate lunch at my moms, ran by Target for a couple of things, and home for a nap. Then it was off to church for our Christmas Eve Candlelight service which is always a special time. Pumpkin was a little vocal but did fairly well. She entertained herself by playing and sometimes talking and waving to a friend who was sitting behind us. After the service, we stopped off to exchange gifts with the Dykes family and then headed back to moms to eat supper. I was exhausted when we got home!
All the grandchildren at Mimi's on Christmas Eve
Sunday morning we got up and attended our Worship Service, which was wonderful. We didn't have Sunday School or a nursery this week, so Pumpkin got to go in big church again. She was very vocal and waived at everyone behind us! She even threw offering envelopes to the man behind us on a couple of occasions. Feeding her some goldfish helped keep her quite, but I forgot to get her cup of juice before I left home, which really would have helped I think!
Pumpkin with my sister
Pumpkin having a blast with her cousins!
During Thanksgiving lunch at my mom's house, my nieces expressed that they wished they could sit at the big table with the adults to eat, so I promised for Christmas I would make it happen. We purposely bought a large dining table to accommodate 10. There would be 12 of us for lunch, counting Pumpkin. So we turned the table around, inserted the leaf and brought in extra chairs from the kitchen. The table is wide, so I put two chairs on one end for two of the kids, and we put Pumpkins high chair on the corner of the other end between J and I. It was a little close, but really not that bad at all, and we were all around one table, just like they requested!
After lunch the kids are so anxious to open gifts. They always seem to try to rush the adults up at the table. We gathered in the great room around the tree and my youngest niece, LG, read the Christmas story to us before we exchanged gifts. It was such as sweet time! I mean that is the real reason we celebrate. The greatest gift we could ever received was given to us through the birth of Jesus!
LG reads the Christmas story from Luke
Our entire family!
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