Even though there was no snow for Christmas it was a perfect day. Santa came Christmas Eve and when Ken and I woke up at 8:30am we actually had to wake the kids up! What a bunch of sleepy heads. We watched the kids open presents from Santa and then from Ken and I. Our kids get one present from Santa – usually the biggest of them all (price-wise) and then the rest of the gifts are from Ken and I. Chase and Karli both got an iPod Touch, Blake got a custom stitched Notre Dame jersey with his last name and number, and Andrew got a new baseball bat since they have to have a certain kind this year that he didn’t already have. We got them all tennis shoes, cases for Chase and Karli’s iPods, Andrew got some clothes and baseball gloves, Blake got a bunch of video games and football cards, and Chase and Karli got a bunch of other miscellaneous toys. The younger kids are so much easier to buy for than the older boys. Their gifts just get more expensive as the years go on.
We had Christmas dinner at our house this year and all the food turned out really good. Ken did a lot of the cooking and preparation. He made kielbasa and we stuffed a turkey will all the fixings. We also got a ham but we had his mom cook that for us and bring it over. There was so much food and it was all so yummy. Christmas Eve we had brunch with my parents and my sister’s family came in town. There are pros and cons with having everything at your house – it’s nice that you don’t have to go anywhere, but then you feel like you are cleaning for several days straight. Cleaning before the day, cleaning during and cleaning even more after. It was all really enjoyable this year and everyone chipped in to help out.
We were going to take a 5 day trip to Washington D.C. during Christmas break but the kids were all whining that they didn’t want to go. My kids just don’t get it sometimes, how lucky they are to be able to experience some of what we do. Andrew didn’t want to go because his buddy from Cleveland was coming in and town and he didn’t want to be away from his friends and girlfriend for an entire week (God forbid, LOL!) and the younger kids just wanted to play with their gifts and hang out at home. I didn’t really care, I mean…to spend money looking at objects from history isn’t really my cup of tea. I would rather spend the money on a couple’s massage somewhere in the Caribbean or something. You should have seen my face when I learned that the “National Mall” in DC is not a shopping mall?? Whaaat? Anyways, it’s hard to come up with ideas of places to visit that don’t cost 10 grand over Christmas break. Flights are so expensive and we have 6 people in our family. So we try to stick with things within driving distance. Then we were going to go skiing again and that is sort of a problem when there is no snow around here. And look here it is Friday already and I feel like we have done a whole lotta nothing. I sure am organized though, I cleaned so much of this house it’s crazy. Enjoy looking at some of our photos below and then the rest are at Flickr.
See rest of our Christmas Photos Here.
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