Christmas at our House

This year was Christmas with my mother and family. We invited everyone over to our house for dinner Christmas Eve, and Grant made prime rib for the first time. It was delicious. After that, Grant built a fire in the living room, and we sang Christmas songs and read the Christmas story from the scriptures before playing our traditional present game.

My mother explaining the rules to Eleanor. I love the anticipation on Eleanor’s face.

Here’s our  group. Uncle Father Bill is in the corner, my mother, the girls, Mike, and Grandpa Gary (Grant is sitting by the fire).

We had a good time. Eleanor didn’t even mind the “stealing” part of the present game. She did end up trading Grandpa once the presents were opened. She thought his fishing game (the one from the dollar store that we intended for her in the first place) looked better than her lilac scented body soap.

We spent Christmas morning at home. I woke up at 4am and couldn’t go back to sleep, but we didn’t wake the girls up early this year since they were both sick. I eventually was able to doze off again around 6 or 7, and the girls woke up between 7:30 and 8.  Grant had us wait in our bedroom until he could get a fire going and breakfast started. Eleanor was about to come unglued, but we read Christmas books and watched Charlie Brown Christmas on the laptop. We let the girls open their stockings and Santa presents before we had breakfast. Eleanor got her rake from Santa, and Phaedra got a shopping cart.

All Phaedra really cared about were the treats in her stocking. You can see how sore her nose was from having been wiped so many times. The skin actually cracked in one place. Poor girl.

We called Laughing Grandma as soon as the girls got up, and she came over to watch the girls open presents. This is the first year we’ve done this, and it was really special to me because we used to have my grandparents and my aunt come watch us on Christmas morning. I think it was probably nice for her, too, since she got to see how excited the kids were.

Phaedra has her cheeks stuffed with crackers from her stocking.

I love the excitement of Phaedra’s audience in this one. She was opening the pink stuffed dog Eleanor got her. It was a hit. Phaedra has always coveted Eleanor’s dog, Spot, and she loves this one.

Mommy and Daddy gave Eleanor her own digital camera, and it could have been a hit, but it turned out to be a miss. She was really excited, but when we opened it and she tried to use it, we found out that it was such poor quality it just wasn’t even worth it. We’re going to take it back. We let her choose if she wants a different camera, a Shaun the Sheep movie, or a different toy. She’ll probably end up with the movie. The camera was a disappointment.

We gave Phaedra twin babies, her first baby dolls of her very own. Upon seeing them, she hollered, “Babies! Babies!” and tried to yank them out of the box (which was, of course, impossible due to all the packaging these days).

She decided she needed to sit in the baby spot.

The next few pictures were taken on the same day, same lighting, same camera . . . new lens! I got a tripod for Christmas, and Grant had me open my birthday present before the official party –a new 35mm lens. It takes in so much light! I rarely have to use flash indoors anymore. Hooray!

Christmas evening, we went to my mother’s for dinner and some more presents. The girls got cute tutus.

Uncle Father Bill gave them these way cute stuffed animals. As soon as Phaedra opened her panda, she immediately gave it a kiss.

As soon as Eleanor opened her lion, she thrust it at us with a great big “Roar!” Needless to say, they were a hit.

Even more fun, the animals flatten out to serve as pillows. Eleanor slept on top of her lion in her bed last night.

And here is my very first use of my tripod for our group shot. Practice makes perfect, and as I said, this was my first. At least I will know what I looked like the day I turned 29.