Christmas Eve 2008

This post could be alternately titled: Too Many Pictures! It has way more pictures and words than last year's simple Christmas Eve post, but I wanted to include as much as possible for Scott since he missed it all this year. I heard he had a pretty good Christmas Eve including grilling out steaks on the roof of his house in Iraq with 6 or so of his buddies. They even had lights strung around the roof area to make things a little more festive.

While Scott was winding up his day half way around the globe, the girls and I celebrated and exchanged gifts with Mimi, Pop Dickie, Kari and James over breakfast on Christmas Eve. I'm not sure who was more eager to get the gift opening started... the girls or Mimi. Before I knew what was happening she had them all opening their first gifts, and as you can tell in the photo below they were thrilled with their new hot pink vests.
It was lots of fun to watch the paper fly as Maggie, Kate, Sarah, and Ella tore into their packages. It was also pretty neat to watch them go over to the tree, look at the gift tags, and pull out gifts for themselves based on the first letters of their names.

They were funny, chatty, and very generous with their thank yous as they opened each gift.

In the afternoon we went to Nanny and Pop C.'s house, as that is our tradition for our larger family Christmas celebration. It was raining outside, and we don't all fit in one spot inside at the same time for a big group shot like we took last year, so instead we did individual family groups. These are my mom's brothers and sisters with their families.

Starting with us... here is our crew minus Scott who was sorely missed. By the time we took this picture he was probably fast asleep somewhere in Iraq and it was already Christmas Day.

Next up was Al and Ginny's gang.... the girls refer to him as "dat silly Owl" , and if you've been reading here for any length of time you can imagine how much we appreciate silliness.

Then we had Donna, Mike, and the boys.

Then we got Janice, Tom, and Tyler.

And Greg, Carol, and crew.

Unfortunately Joe had already left to take Cody home before I thought to get out my camera, so I don't have one of the two of them, but I did get one with Joe in the background at least. Kari and her mini-me Kate were making him grin.

I also had this cute shot of Mimi and her shadow Maggie. The girls didn't wear these dresses to the festivities. They got into the clothes closets upstairs at Nanny's that are filled with mine, Kari's, and Erica's old dresses. It was a hoot to see them come down dressed in some of these frocks!

Almost as funny as the fake earrings and the princess attire that they opened when we got into the gifts later on.

After a long, fun-filled, crazy busy day, we brought four tired little gals home and put them to bed. Then it was time for Santa to go to work. Let me just say, for the record, that his work is much more fun when it is not done alone! I really missed having Scott here to help, play, and enjoy this part of the holiday. We did simplify things this year by having Santa only bring 3 gifts to each one. Also, lest anyone should think I put those 3 tricycles together myself, I need to thank Darrick and Suzanne for putting them together, storing them, and then delivering on Christmas Eve. You guys are the best!

All in all, it was a very exciting day that could have only been better if Daddy were here with us to celebrate! Here's hoping and praying that we'll enjoy togetherness next year for the holidays among all our other many blessings.