Merry Christmas!

 Pure. Christmas. Joy.

Aside from the endless George the elf mischief that needed cleaning up each morning, it really seemed like this Christmas season flew by.  Before we knew it the big day was here and the presents that had just been wrapped and put under the tree (hiding the very sad and anemic base of our artificial tree) were unwrapped in a frenzy (exposing, yet again, that sad looking, skinny trunk).  But, honestly, I'm not sure how much more Christmas anticipation these kids could have handled.  Natalie told me about mid-month she was so excited for Christmas that she just couldn't eat or sleep.  They would ask every day, "now, how many days until Santa comes?" And as we got closer and closer it was, "now, tell me again, does Santa come this night or the next night?", "how many sleeps do we have until Santa comes?", "does Santa ever surprise people and come early?" The best was when Natalie, December calendar in hand, said, "Has this really only been ONE day?  I can't believe it's not time to cross off another day on my calendar yet!!  I wish bedtime would just get here so it could be tomorrow!"  So funny.

Christmas Day was super fun...a busy morning of opening presents, eating cinnamon rolls and playing with our new pet gecko (Natalie's big present), Zipper.  Papa Rod and Grandma Lala arrived mid-day and the party started all over again.  We were so excited to see them and show them all the work we've done on the house since their last visit during the summer.  They stayed in a nearby hotel and the highlight of the girls' days after Christmas was going there for breakfast to see the sparkly lobby Christmas trees and eat pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse. 

We all headed into the city the day after Christmas (which was exactly the madhouse you'd picture it being) and then explored downtown Walnut Creek the next day.  A super fun way to end the week.  Over the weekend, Mom, the girls and I headed over the hill to visit GGPa and GGMa in Reno. The girls loved playing in the small patches of icy snow left over from the last storm and sitting by the fireplace to warm up!  They also loved all the Christmas decorations GGMa had out and could have probably stayed another week just exploring (and touching) it all! A really nice way to end the year!

Mostly, I was just thankful we were all (relatively) healthy for the holiday this year!   It was a really great Christmas.