Christmas and family.....

I had the Friday off before Christmas to finish getting ready for Christmas.... I cleaned up the house a little, and we did a little bit of last minute shopping. I made Neighbor treats which consisted of Chex mix, date snowballs, and Samoa bars... yummm... then we all watched a movie.
Saturday we all got up and wrapped presents all day, and delivered neighbor gifts. We did a little bit of last minute Christmas shopping. Before we left the kids had bought some "Christmas outfits".... and this is what they wore into Walmart for our last minute shopping trip... I think they were going for the "ugly Christmas sweater" theme......

 Then we made Mongolian Beef.. and watched the Christmas story.
We always give the kids Christmas ornaments... this year we bought them on our trip to Disneyland... Sarah got Ariel and Andy got the boogey man guy from "Nightmare before Christmas".

 We all got new PJ's which we got to open on Christmas Eve. Yes... Jim and I even got some!

We finished up wrapping presents... every year I say I"m going to wrap it when I buy it... but it never fails, I"m wrapping on Christmas Eve night.
Christmas morning I got up early to make scone dough and my Christmas Fruit salad for our traditional Christmas breakfast with Mom and Dad and Brian and Jennifer's family. I noticed some packages under the tree that I didnt' put there.... they were white paper packages tied up with twine and sealed with red wax...

                                                            hmmm that was curious...
but I knew I would have to wait until we opened presents later in the afternoon. Funny how when your kids are small they wake you up early cuz they can't wait for presents... then when you are older you have to wait for them to get up, we eat Breakfast, go to church, and then open presents. Oh well... just makes it last longer.
We all got up (finally) and made it to Mom's to start cooking scones. Kim and Angela joined us this year. When we arrived Mom was talking to Jan, Doug had felt like he was having a heart attack, but after a quick visit to his doc he was okay. Whew! We had a lovely breakfast with scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, bacon and sausage and scones.... YUMMO!

 As you can see... we had LOTS of food.... and a few Santa Hats.........

  Sarah had bought this Ariel doll for Kella (who is Sarah's best little buddy) Sarah was sooooo excited to give it to her... .I think she loved it!

                                              Scones anyone???

 yes..... more Santa hats..... isn't my dad cute... he looks like an elf...........................

 My brother kind of looks like an elf too.............................

Then after a nice visit it was back home to get ready for church. this year since Christmas was on Sunday we just had a Choir program. Kim got to be the narrator. IT was nice... then it was time for presents.

First we start off by seeing what loot is in our Christmas stockings....I had bought scratch tickets for everyone's stockings, so we spent the first 15 minutes scratching those! It's always fun, but we never win big... I think we did get $10 bucks though which is better than a sharp stick in the eye (Jim's favorite saying).

Then we got to open those "mysterious" gifts..... and guess what!! We each had personal letters from Albus Dumbledore stating that we had all been accepted into Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry... and we each had wands and special quotes and gifts from Dumbledore himself... Sarah got a time turner.. (which is great because she 's late alot), Andy got a Holcrux (not sure if I spelled that right) I got an owl, and Jim got a golden snitch. How fun is that???

 (All of that was thanks to a certain little girl elf I know who has caught the Harry Potter bug a little later than everyone else, but she is addicted for sure!)

Then sticking to tradition, Jim passed out the presents (sticking with a tradition that my Dad started in my family) Then after we each have our piles, we start with the youngest and go up to the oldest, opening one present at a time (we each open one, then start over till the presents are all opened) this makes it last longer......

  Doesn't Christmas look like fun at our house?? I thought I had cut back a little this year but it still seemed to be like LOTS of presents!!

Even thougth Sarah didn't think she was getting anything this year because I had given her a little moolah earlier in the month, I did manage to surprise her with a new sweater and black boots, and of course the usual calendar, and a few other fun things!! She even got new pink bunny slippers like on "The Christmas Story" from Andrew......

Andy got stuff for school, a new laptop backpack, a printer, new shoes and clothes for school, and socks and underwear.... LOTS of socks and underwear.. and the usual calendar and fun things......

 Jim got an I-tune card and M&M's from Andy, and a Harry Potter tie and phone holder for his car from Sarah, and pants and things from me and a gift card to Best buy..........................

 I got spoiled... Andy got me a new hot pad set since I seem to catch mine on fire.. hahahaha.. and Calendar, I also got a fuzzy snowman blanket,and jeans and perfume... and Sarah spoiled me with new dinner plates and bowls (which we ate Christmas dinner on) ......

Sarah really spoiled us all with a Harry Potter Scene it game (which we had fun playing later Christmas night) and she also got us new fun ceramic popcorn bowls and popcorn. I told her not to spend to much money on you and she did the complete opposite.

While we were opening presents we had Ham and sourcream potatoes cooking in the oven. Mom and Dad joined us for Christmas dinner....

After dinner guess what time it was...............................

                                          TIME FOR A SCRABBLE GAME!!! of course!

 We have another tradition of playing scrabble with Mom and Dad whenever Sarah is home... and if it's a holiday we say if you can spell a holiday word you get double the points... so if you land on a double word score you get that doubled again! Which is way fun..............

and of course I have to consult the dictionary just in case... you have to watch Mom and Dad... sometimes they try to pull a fast one and mispell words or make up some words..........or sometimes a swear word or two....

I love Holday time............ I love spending time with family and just being together...after all isn't that what

Christmas is about Charlie Brown?????