Edith's First Christmas!

I can't believe Christmas has already come and gone. Big thought it was never going to come, but I guess he was wrong. Talk about a looong month for the poor kid. We had a great time celebrating. It was so fun to see the kids' excitement and joy at every aspect of our celebration. Well, most of the kids anyway. Edith thought it was all kind of a bore (and tiring!) until we got to the paper and bows on Christmas Day. Now that stuff was cool! 


On Christmas Eve we went over to my folks' house to have a fantastic meal with my parents and my sister, Auntie Art's, family. It was fun to have Edith and her twin boybie cousins together for their first big Christmas celebration. I was a little lame with the picture taking this year, so when I took photos of the nativity action I missed taking a photo of Ginger dressed as Mary and didn't get any photos of the actual action. We were trying to rush things along a little bit due to tired babies who needed to be in bed (as you'll see from the photos of Edith).


Oh, and just ignore Rophone's walleyed look in the pictures. Sometimes Crohn's attacks one of his eyes and gives him a lazy eye. It can be a bit disconcerting when I'm talking to him to suddenly see his eye drift toward the ceiling. Luckily it's not too bad in the photos.


The first shot is of our two little angels, Pen and Edith. Edith was so excited to get dressed up for the part and sat still while I tied on her cape and put on her halo. She didn't even try to take them off once.

Bud as 'Joseph' and Rophone as a shepherd:

Rophone and Big as shepherds, holding a tired angel.

Believe me when I say that Ginger made a beautiful 'Mary'. I didn't take the time to don a costume due to the rapidly dwindling time we had to accomplish our activity. I was dressed as a modern wisewoman. Never has our acting out of the nativity been so short and sweet. I thought it was perfect.


We went back to our house to sleep and wake up for the Christmas festivities the next day. After our traditional breakfast of cheesy scrambled eggs and bran muffins (and cleaning the kitchen, of course), the kids lined up to go see what Santa had brought.

We had the older kids wait for a minute to dig in to their stuff so we could all watch Edith and take pictures. It wasn't exactly the climactic moment we were hoping for....

Rophone finally grabbed a pack of binkies out of her stocking and handed it to her. She liked those and spent a lot of time investigating the packaging, trying to figure out how to get them open. She really didn't spend any time investigating how to get her present open, even when Rophone reached out and got it started for her.

Exciting stuff. Okay, on to everyone else.

Now Edith's finally into it now that we got her present out of the box. That's more like it.

So much loot. Edith was in heaven. She was surrounded with much better stuff than a baby doll-- candy, boxes, wrapping, bows. The best stuff out there.

We went on with opening gifts from each other while Edith explored.

Ginger's face is an example of what an iTunes gift card will do to someone around here. I think she liked your gift, Bud.

Rophone and I decided to start a new tradition this year. A long, long, looong time ago, on one of our first Christmases together as a couple, Rophone, knowing I like Twix, decided he wanted to include some as a part of my Christmas packages. Not realizing what it would mean, he asked my mother to purchase him some at the local box store. 

As I opened my first package I was happy to see a Twix was included with the gift. "I love Twix!" I exclaimed. I understood Rophone's response of, "I hope so." as I opened the rest of my gifts. As I continued to open my presents, more and more Twix bars appeared. I was starting to accumulate quite a pile. Packages of socks were separated just so he could include a pair with 4 Twix. A box of hand lotion with 2 more. A pair of pants with 6 Twix. Thirty-six full-sized Twix candy bars later and I was done. Oh my.

Our kids have heard the story quite a few times and think it's funny, so this year we decided to include a little mini Twix in each of their presents from us. I think it was just about their favorite part of the present-opening. We had a lot of fun.

Our favorite part about Christmas is the time we get to spend together as a family. We sure did enjoy being together this year. It was fun to watch Edith on her first Christmas as she observed and absorbed all that went on. Can't wait until next year to establish more traditions and make more memories!