Holiday Review

**WORKING ENTRY**

Christmas Eve-Eve - We went to my mom's for our second annual eve-eve celebration. My mom reserves the gym at church and we have games for the kids, eat christmas dinner, and have a little christmas pageant on the stage. And then afterwards, we all go to my mom's house, have dessert and Santa Claus comes and hands out little stocking stuffers. We came up with this idea two years ago in lieu of the traditional present exchange, and I am SO glad we did it. It has really helped us focus on the real purpose of Christmas, and considering the health issues my mom has had the past two years, just being together is all that matters.

Because we didn't want to make the long drive home late that night, we spent the night with my mom. I enjoyed it so much I think we might do that every year, if that's okay with her. It was nice to have my mom all to ourselves.



I didn't take ANY pictures while at my mom's. Doh.



The next day, Christmas Eve, we left my mom's early afternoon and drove to Midlothian to hang out with Brian's family at his sister Kristine's house. We had a fabulous smorgasborg, but cut the night off early due to the weather. Everyone driving back up to Dallas caravaned together and we braved the Christmas Eve snowstorm of 2009. What normally takes an hour to get home took two hours, but the kids were good and we actually kind of enjoyed the adventure. I mean, how often are you stuck driving in a snowstorm on Christmas Eve in DALLAS? I love it.



Christmas morning was wonderful! The kids were so pooped from the night before we slept in till 8:30 and had to wake them up to open presents.



Abby and Carter got bikes for Christmas and as a last minute addition, Brian put a basket on Abby's bike.



She was excited when she pulled away the bag and saw the bike, but here's her face when she saw the basket. Simple pleasures.