My Favorite . . .

Of all of the Christmas celebrations that we are a part of, my favorite by far is our family Christmas at home. It's so wonderful to have a relaxing day at home!!

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We actually do our family celebration on Christmas Eve . . . that is one of the best decisions we ever made! No opening presents and then running off to see other family. We have an entire day to ourselves, and I love it!

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The night before we let the kids open one present (which is the same thing every year - Jammies! Ali and Emma have finally caught on to that pattern!) So the next morning they are all in their new cute jammies - it makes for great pictures! : )

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Usually we do cupcakes for breakfast (healthy, I know) and we sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. This year I just didn't have the stamina or the time to bake cupcakes, but the girls were happy to settle for Barbie Pop Tarts : ) After breakfast we all move to the living room where Aaron reads the Christmas Story from the Bible. It's fun to listen to the kids discussing, asking questions and commenting. It's a great time to sit and focus, stepping away from all of the chaos. Then, we move on to presents.

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My picture taking was (as previously mentioned) quite pathetic. I didn't even take a group picture of the girls . . . oh well! The "Big" gift this year was the Game Cube from Aaron and I. The girls haven't had much gaming experience, but they have played Mario Kart on the Alligood's Game Cube, and wanted it badly.

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The girls do all of their Christmas shopping for each other at the Dollar Store . . . so they had many little cheapy gifts to open. Some of them didn't even make it through the day, but it was fun while it lasted. In fact, one of Julie's favorites was a toy cell phone. She walked around all day talking on that thing!

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As mentioned previously, I did manage to take 2 naps on Christmas Eve . . . ahhh bliss!! After nap time we did actually get everyone dressed (we had thus far spent the entire day in our jammies!) and headed over to the Alligood's for an hour or so. Amber's parents came in town late the previous night and were only staying for two days, so we wanted to get over to visit a bit. It was great to see "Grammy and Papa" (as my kids call them). We came back home to dinner, ready in the crock pot. We played some games, and called it an early night!