Well, it’s finally here…Christmas!

We celebrated early with my family, who came up for Sophie’s choir concert. All three girls got to open presents and we also made gingerbread houses (not pictured, because it was a total disaster).

Pre-present opening. The excitement was palpable! If this was a movie you would see the girls shaking.

And then actual Christmas came. Here’s the living room set up Christmas Eve (with the dining room table poking into the living room because it was so long).

And the girls Christmas morning before running into the living room. Sophie is shielding her eyes so she can’t see the presents. Amazingly they both slept in until about 7:30. And Santa, as he always does, put their stockings at the foot of their beds, so that they could occupy themselves for a bit before running downstairs (and in theory let mom and dad sleep longer – although this year we were up before them).

Just a few of the many gifts the girls got. Lauren is ready for ski season with a new helmet (not seen in this picture is a unicorn on the back), and new goggles, and a new book for Sophie, which she read entirely by herself over vacation (proud mom moment).

Later that day the entire local Rainer crew came over for dinner, as well as Zoe and Elliott from Dave’s side of the family. Here are a lot of the cousins: Lauren, Julia, Maithili, Kishore, Quinn, Ashwini, Sophie, and Carley.

The dinner table, which started in the dining room and went into the living room, sat all 24 of us, which Kishore at the head, of course! For the second year in a row Dave cooked the entire meal. As always, it was delicious! Everyone else brought desserts. Afterward we opening presents and relaxed.

The crew opening presents; Addison and Hayley with Ashwini

Dick and Suzy

Lydia, Zoe, and Elliott

Zoe and Elliott slept over because they were housesitting for us the following week while we were in the Florida Keys. Those two, along with Lydia, were AMAZING and helped us clean up the entire house that night, because we left the next morning at 7:30am to catch our flight. Phew!