Merry Christmas!

I love our Christmas’s at home.  We get up earlier than usual—the sun does have to be up, though—and go straight for the stockings (well, I go straight for the coffee).  Growing up, my family always had stockings overflowing with goodies, so we’ve continued that tradition and stockings for us take a good bit of time to open and check out.  After stockings, we have a nice breakfast together (usually something I’ve put together the night before that was cooking while we opened stockings).  And, then after breakfast we dive in to the Santa gifts and the presents under the tree.  We stay in our pajamas most of the day, play with our new toys, and have a nice—but by no means fancy—dinner in the early evening.  The home-run Christmas gifts this year were the pogo sticks, rainbow loom bands, and Minecraft masks from Santa and from us, for Jack, football-themed gifts (Madden for Wii, a Panthers sideline hat and t-shirt, and a few football stats books) and, for Ella, a real (as in not just for kids) sewing machine (one I hope to learn to use, too).  Jonathan had to settle for a photo of his big gift—I commissioned a cornhole set with Davidson Wildcats on one side and Florida Gators on the other from Jacqui’s neighbor in Orlando, so this had to be picked up on our trip to Florida after Christmas.  I got a Vitamix and TRX set that I am loving—so here’s to a healthy 2014!  It was a very merry Christmas indeed.