Christmas Day

Christmas morning calm....

I absolutely love how my stocking hanger turned out! Brian did such an incredible job making this for me with limited tools, and only palette wood. It will be cherished!

AS always. Tate reads the bible before presents...

Sparky really is the best present of all-

Well, besides Jesus of course...

He was a little confused about wearing his new jacket-

Lynn sent us a new smoker from her recent trip to Germany-

I'm trying not to lose my mind at this point and just enjoy the choas...

Macy barely has anywhere to sit-

A few favorite gifts- 

Our morning was pretty lovely- at home, together. We didn't even make 11am church- so glad we went the night before!

We had thrown out an idea to the Walgren & Petros' of a progressive Christmas dinner together- and they loved it! Leasa's parents were here visiting from NC and had contracted COVID, but we didn't even care- COVID would not ruin our Christmas. 

At 4pm we headed down to the Walgren's for drinks & appetizers, ornament making (who can forget Mitchel's award winning soda can ornament, or Kate's amazing Grinch?) and cookie decorating. The plan was for everyone to be in Christmas pajamas- but we kicked it up a notch-

Oh yes we did! Buddy & Jovie return. Can't you just hear Brian's joyful noises? I think he was skipping too!

I can not believe we don't have any pictures of Tricia's lovely table scape! She had ornaments made for us all, and everything was beautiful. Including the prime rib-

After dinner we came to our house for dessert & white elephant gift exchange- 

Homemade kahlua, baileys and egg nog-

The white elephant had a very fun rule- we couldn't buy anything. So everything had to be a "gift" that you already owned. Don't want that sweater anymore, wrap it up! It was very fun. 

I declared 12/26 a pajama day and I’m happy to say that I did it! This Christmas cold I picked up certainly helps keep me laying low… and also gives me so extra down time to think about this period of time we are now in as the actual 12 days of Christmas. All the joy of the season doesn’t end on 12/25, but actually on 1/5 (the 12th day of Christmas) when the 3 wise men visited Jesus and declared him to be the son of God. How cool is that? We get to enjoy all the merriment of the season for an extra 12 days.