Early Christmas

Now that the kids are grown and we have an assortment of half's and steps, in-laws and out-laws, it's hard to find a time when everyone can get together to celebrate on Christmas Day. To make it even more challenging, we wanted to spend some time on Christmas with hubby's house-bound mom, who lives over an hour away.

So, we tried something new this year - holding our celebration on Christmas Eve. We took the little girls out to watch Santa fly over (love helicopter Santa!), 

drove though some of the more brightly decorated neighborhoods to admire the lights, then came home to find that Santa had already stopped at our house!

We told the kids that we must have been first on his list of stops this year and that's why they were getting presents early. 
I don't know if they believed that story or not, but they really didn't care; presents are presents and early presents are the best.
The kids will find that Santa visits them at their homes tomorrow morning too, but we had a lot of fun putting together our early holiday. Hubby bought a gently used playhouse that now resides in our pool-table room for all the girls to enjoy. 

Leanne got a new car seat, because at 10 months, she's already outgrown the one that was supposed to last her until 18 months (she looks so small in it!) 

We had pizza and goodies and lots of kisses. 

All in all, a very successful early Christmas.