the allen's: Had Ourselves a Merry Little Christmas

Hope y’all had a wonderful Christmas last week. Our family sure did. The month of December was a whirlwind of activity at our house. Dinners, parties, shopping, wrapping… Throw in a couple of weeks of school and you’ll know why I’m excited that the holiday season is behind us. I’m pooped!

Today I selected a few pictures highlighting some of our Christmas activites.

First, Chrismtas Eve…

After reading the Christmas story from the Bible, the kids selected some tasty Christmas candy to leave by the fireplace for Santa.

“All I want for Christmas…”

How many kids get a visit from both Santa and the Tooth Fairy on the same night? Lucy lost her second front tooth on Christmas Eve, so she stuck it in her stocking and received a $5 bill from the Tooth Fairy in addition to all of her Christmas gifts.

Speaking of gifts, the monkeys were in hog heaven with the mountain of presents they received Thursday. It really was a ridiculous amount of Christmas booty.

Here’s a quick run-through of some of the kids’ Christmas gifts.

Fron Santa Ty received walkie-talkies, Zoobs, a Squishy Human,

a kitchen science experiment book, an architectural style desk lamp, Hex Bugs, a Drinking Bird, and a necklace. He also received a mini mummy excavation kit, which he ranked as the best gift of the morning.

Lucy got My Little Pony pajamas, Sleeping Beauty DVD, Leap Pad Ultra, pink hair color, Hex Bugs, and a Thermos Funtainer (which I would highly recommend to anyone with kids.) Her favorite gift by far was the American Girl doll Isabelle.

Miss Tacy Mae got some fun things too (once she finally woke up.) However, she really couldn’t have cared less about the gifts. The first thing we pulled out of her stocking was a bag of Goldfish. She wanted them opened immediately and expressed zero interest as Lucy tore through the rest of her presents for her. Among Tacy’s gifts were a baby Cinderella doll with matching dress-up clothes, Crayola Color Wonder markers and coloring book, Jesus Calling Storybook Bible, a Thermos Funtainer, and Leap Pad Ultra.

When I was a kid Santa sometimes left special gifts for me and my brother behind our couch. It was so much fun for us to peek behind the couch to see what awesome things might be hiding back there. This year Santa was back to his same old tricks. He left each monkey a fun chair behind our couch. Ty got a gi-normous, foam-filled bag. Lucy got a comfy, red bean bag chair for her room, and Tacy got a red and aqua Sweet Seat.

After all of the Santa gifts had been opened, my dad, mom, brother, and his family came over for Christmas breakfast. We had a delicious spread of biscuits, sausage and egg casserole, fresh fruit, and rosemary polenta. When we’d all eaten our fill, the kids enjoyed showing their new toys and games to their grandparents. Then Ty sat down with Uncle Jude, and the two set to work excavating the mummy.

It didn’t take the too long for them to chisel through the plaster and ~~make a tremendous mess on my kitchen table~~ unearth the sarcophagus. While the boys were honing their archaeology skills, Lucy and I played beauty shop and added a pink streak to Lucy’s hair.

On Christmas afternoon we moved on to the Tool Man’s parents house. For lunch we had the traditional Christmas fixings: turkey, ham, dressing, sweet potato casserole… you get the idea. Yum! Then it was time to open more presents. Lucy got tons of new clothes for her doll Isabelle.

Ty, who loves putting things together, got a model engine to assemble.

Tacy got her very own American Girl Bitty Baby doll. Even though she’s still a baby herself, she knew just what to do with the doll – love it and rock it.

As if we hadn’t had enough food and gifts for one day, on Christmas night we drove to my parents’ house for more!

Of course the kids were just as excited as ever to open presents.

By the time Christmas night rolled around, Tacy finally decided to participate in opening her own presents. However, her participation was limited to pulling the tissue paper out of gift bags and immediately shoving it back in. I don’t think she ever realized there were toys in the bags.

My uncle and his family also drove up for a visit on Christmas night. Lucy had a blast playing with his 3 teenage daughters who catered to her every whim. She even got into a little mischief using one of them as a makeshift step stool.