Christmas

This years Christmas was a rather low key family affair. On Christmas Eve we went to the evening service at church, picked up my sister in the city and then went out for dinner. When we got home we had L leave out cookies for Santa in her Christmas P.J.'s and then finished the night off with the very traditional family reading of "The Night Before Christmas."

Christmas day was a wonderfully relaxing family day spent relishing in each other, and experiencing the joys of childhood. We had given L a small budget to let her pick out and buy Christmas gifts for my sister, Joe and myself, and one of my favorite parts of the day was watching L eagerly wait for us to open our gifts from her. All of the gifts picked out from her were surprisingly thoughtful. For my sister a very stylish dress, for Joe a football, and for myself a pink long sleeved cotton shirt, pink pajama bottoms, pink slippers and a small baby doll for me to give to Hannah. L is always wanting me to wear more pink, and I think she was making a compromise with the bedtime wear.

Sorry, the pictures are all of L as none of the rest of us wished to share our early morning beauty.

Writing her letter to Santa.

Now arranging everything just right. (First thing she did was check to make sure Santa ate/drank it all)

What Santa left in exchange for those cookies-the requested "pink train set". (The pink train set was purchased at Toys R US. It is their house brand, and the only pink train set we could find at the time.)

Please look to the far right corner of this picture and notice the horse figurine on its side. This one and a couple of it's friends have become L's all time FAVORITE toys. I will have to do a blog on the the horses that have captured our girls heart and imagination.

Waiting patiently for her turn as I believe Auntie Kaiah is opening a gift.

Happily going at it! (Note the footless pajamas? Yes, L really is Marmar's granddaughter and would only wear her Christmas P.J.'s if we cut off the feet.)

Anyone who shops at Costco and has a small girl probably can guess what this is-the ubiquitous princess dress treasure chest!

L was thrilled with it! I may of added a few things in the box like matching princess shoes :-)

So much happiness! And to not bore anyone with every picture of every gift we come to an end.