A Very Merry Christmas Indeed!

The last few days before Christmas were still packed with fun stuff!  Adam brought us these adorable cookie decorating kits, so we got to work on those right away:

My choir was supposed to sing the National Anthem at a UVA basketball game (mostly because all the students are gone, I think?), so we all bought tickets.  But then, after our concert, someone had Covid, so they decided we'd all exposed each other enough without adding one more thing, so the Star-Spangled Banner was canceled for us.  Which was a bummer.  I decided to just stay home and make sure Colton and Camille went to bed at a decent hour.  And I wrapped presents (while watching TV, which was nice)!  Craig took all the older kids and they had a great time, even if UVA lost...

I convinced Bentley and Kendra to do those nose strips with me

And Craig went to town baking up a storm!  Here they are rolling out gingerbread men!

Christmas Eve we visited the tacky Christmas lights house (which is mostly lights and not nearly as many blow up decorations as it used to be)

And opened our Christmas Eve jammies from Grandma and Grandpa!

This was a big hit!

This year Craig and my Mom decided not to bother with making everyone match, and since they were all thrilled with their jammies, I think that was a great idea!

...Left out cookies for Santa and a carrot for his reindeer

Colton's note was cute (he keeps trying to get people to call him Fred.  This greatly confused his teachers.)

As was Camille's!  I continue to be impressed with all the emotion she puts into her stick figures!  For those not used to interpreting 6-year-old Covid-impacted writing, it reads, "Dear Santa, this is what I want: a stuffed animal, squid that can flip, and some surprises."

Before the chaos begins!

So excited to see if Santa came!

Everyone got a Disney mask in their stocking!

I kind of love the look on Camille's face here!

This girl!

Covered in all the wrapping paper Craig managed to put around this gift to me (which was a spoon rest to go on top of my stove 😂)

Bentley very excited for this small package (which was air pod pros!)

Bentley was extremely happy to get tennis balls

This made me laugh

Once we were finally done opening presents, Craig got to work on his turkey and I took a nap!  Dinner was a lovely affair, but not quite as many dishes as we'd had for Thanksgiving, so it felt much easier.  I watched It's a Wonderful Life with the kids and cried during all the usual places.  It was just such a nice happy day!

Merry Christmas, everyone!