White Christmas?!?!?!?

Christmas Eve was wonderful! It snowed all afternoon and into the evening. The kids went out to play and had a short (very short) snowball fight. Luke cried for five minutes after he came inside because his hands hurt from the cold. Goofball. Every time he asked to go outside again I reminded him that his hands would get cold again and he would change his mind and just played inside.

SNOWBALL FIGHT!

We drove off to church on Christmas Eve and attended a very uncrowded service at 6:30. George was quite chatty through the whole thing, and the kids acted like they had never been to church before. Embarrassing, but truly not terribly behaved. Before we went to church, the kids decided they wanted to give Jesus a star for his birthday and they pulled two ornaments off of our Christmas tree to take to Jesus. Here they are placing a gold star/snowflake ornament by baby Jesus.




After church, we went home and enjoyed the snow by a fire with some champagne. Loved every freakin' minute of it!





Earlier that day, the kids made cookies for Santa with more sprinkles than is reasonable. Poor Santa choked down a bite of each one, but it was rough. At least the kids had a good time making the cookies.




Christmas morning, the snow was sparkling and beautiful.



I made a french toast casserole for breakfast and started the turkey. The kids eventually showed up, after George had his breakfast, but I missed it because I was in the kitchen.


I insisted that I had to have my coffee (with Irish Cream) before we started opening presents and that there had to be Christmas music playing in the background. Luke asked for a steam roller and Evie asked for barbie dolls whose hair switches. They both got what they asked for. They also wanted a crucifix. Yup, that's what I said. They got it, but apparently there are no crucifixes out there that are geared toward children, so the crucifix is pretty harsh. They loved it anyway.



Lindsey got a watch, a fancy pillow that plays her ipod, a tea kettle, and a random assortment of other gifts. I think she had a good time. It was probably very difficult for her to be away from her family, but we got to talk to them over Skype that morning and she talked to them again that evening. She's such a trooper. She also made sure we enjoyed some of her English traditions including Christmas crackers, minced pies, and Cadbury chocolates. It was so much fun to have her with us!


Oh, and Chuck got me a new iphone. Chuck got an iphone too, and now we are proper dorks, with the his and hers docking station.


(Forgive my lack of makeup).

Evie got Chuck a Ken doll so that they can now play barbies together:

He's beyond thrilled.

Most bizarre gift was Chuck's parents' gift to him:


We're still not sure what this is about.

Our friends Mr. & Mrs. Chesapeake came over for dinner and brought their daughter Savannah. I know I'm bragging, but you'll have to get over it. I made the turkey (which I knew I could do), but I carved the turkey for the first time by myself and I did an amazing job. The slices of meat were beautiful and actually looked like meat instead of looking like a hacked up turkey carcass!



We drove down to Houston Saturday morning to celebrate Christmas with my family. The drive was miserable because Evie was carsick the entire four hours and ralphed about 6 times. I'm starting to get better at it. We also got to see my sister Mary and her family who live in London and came to visit all of us this Christmas. Here she is with her daughter Alexa, holding my sweet George.


It was a great Christmas. I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas as much as we did!