The kids were up by 7:30 and discovered their Santa and Ralphie gifts (unwrapped) next to the tree before we all came upstairs to open our Christmas stockings in bed (Tradition!) Santa brought Cora REAL makeup (something special, for sure, and also something she requested months ago - though she thought mama would cave and buy it for her) and he brought James the Lego Submarine set that he really wanted. Ralphie wasn't sure what to get Cora, but he hit the nail on the head with the Maleficent doll - Cora is IN LOVE with it! And James received the Nutcracker he requested. Happy little kids to start the day!
(He was hugging the Nutcraker and snuggling into our bed, just as cute as can be)
(Annual family PJ photo before opening our stockings)
The opening of stockings always takes about an hour, between the chocolate eating and immediate playing with new toys. The big hits this year: the little handgun rockets (Jay liked them as much as the kids - should have bought him a set too!), the water Barbie (Cora immediately stripped Maleficent and took off her boots so she and the water Barbie could match), the scotch (always a hit - that's why I keep doing it every year), and I loved my necklaces (I got two!) and custom boxes (yes, that's suppose to be plural - I got two of these too!) of Sees Candies.
When we made it downstairs, we poured some coffee and Jay headed down to take care of Molson and Barley, so the kids busied themselves with makeup application and nut-cracking...
Daddy quickly returned and the kids tore into the gifts under the tree with glee! It was so fun to watch them marvel over some of the items (from us, from their aunt and uncles, and from Gramma - we saved Grambot and PawPaw's gifts for later this afternoon) and they were very good about taking turns and passing gifts around, letting us pause to see what everything was and who it was from, and to get right to playing with some things. I tried to take photos of it all, but obviously I didn't catch everything. Lucky for you, because the ones I did catch still add up to a LOT of photos...
Ready to get started! But patient enough to pose and smile for mama.
(P.S. Cora stuck her stuffed Rudolph in the tree so he could say Hi to Santa. It was quite a sacrifice for her to not have him to sleep with last night. Uncle Jamie sent him to her 2-3 Christmas' ago and he's been her favorite stuffed animal ever since. And P.P.S. I have no idea why Christmas jammies turned into her Elsa costume BEFORE gift opening commenced, but as you know, Cora requires many costume changes throughout the day, so we just roll with it.)
The Elsa Ice Castle made her very, very happy.
Here she was saying "This is the one I always wanted!" (in reference to the Cinderella Lego set).
James was in shock over this family gift. He's been wanting to learn to play chess for months!
"Lego Dimensions?! Alright! Can we play NOW?!?!"
"No, seriously? Can we play today?... When can we play?!"
Auntie Taryn and Uncle Davey - these were their reactions to seeing the Elsa Frozen Fever dress and Lego Dimensions Level (that little satisfied smile! - he couldn't wait to get started!)
(He was excited about his bag of new books, but just look at him eyeing Cora's Lego Dimensions Level from her Auntie and Uncle...)
Gosh you guys - I'll tell ya, this scene of the kids at the end of the present opening spree just melted our hearts to pieces. Of all the cool new toys and puzzles and electronics, James got right down with his pile of books and started reading through them. We couldn't be prouder!
Next up was breakfast. Instead of monkey bread this year, we kept it really fast and simple with cinnamon rolls and parfaits (a tradition that the Kennedy family does, that sounded so very good to me, I had to try it out). James spied that ice cream and Cool Whip and it was like Christmas had started all over again:
Cora, on the other hand, was not at all pleased that the ice cream was touching berries which were touching the Cool Whip. How dare I. She eventually just picked the berries out, ate the Cool Whip with her hands, and passed the ice cream over to James...
(And she was undressed only because I made her take off her new Elsa Frozen Fever costume before sitting down to eat, which is probably another reason for that pout...)
Shortly after breakfast I found her in yet another costume (Merida), putting on her makeup (for the third or fourth time). We had to install the bathroom or kitchen only rule for the makeup so it doesn't end up all over the couch or her bed, hence the little potty stool set up here:
While the kids played, Jay and I got the turkey cooking, then I started putting casseroles together while Jay and the kids started putting the Lego Dimensions portal thingy together (don't worry, I'm sure I'll have all the proper lingo figured out soon enough...) Good thing they did too, since it was scheduled to take 3+ hours to load/sync (or whatever it had to do before James could actually play). It would have been a sad night had he not been able to play before bed!
(We rarely set a proper table or make a big meal on Christmas Eve or Christmas, but we wanted to do something special for Grambot and PawPaw since they were flying in on the holiday. The kids decorated placemats, I found little stockings to use as utensil holders, we got everyone their own Tervis Tumbler to use throughout the week - Flamingos for Grambot!, everyone got cozy socks to put on before dinner - we bought these long before we knew it was going to be 80 degrees on Christmas, and Grambot and PawPaw received some Sees Candies and Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory chocolates.)
(Anxiously, very anxiously, awaiting the arrival of Grambot and PawPaw at the airport, Christmas ninja shirts proudly displayed. They should have worn shorts too...)
Merry Christmas to all!
