Christmas was a Month Ago

We had a great Christmas. It was last month. We are now talking about it. We spent Christmas morning at our house and had Vivian's family stay over. Later, we headed up to my Parents' house and spent the evening with my family. This is kind of our Christmas routine. In fact, I probably could have cut and pasted the last few sentences from 2006's post, and then just switched the words "Vivian's" and "my" since we usually alternate where we start and where we end. Over the years, this has worked out pretty well and I think it's pretty hardcore to go driving around on Christmas Day.

We opted to do a little Secret Santa action with Viv's family after last year's consumerism hit an all-time high. It was a lot of fun despite the fact that it was anything but secret. I think, by Christmas, everyone but me knew who their Secret Santa was. I think Josh even wrote on his gift to Al:

To: Al
From: Secret Santa Josh

For the girls, the highlights were Kitchen 2.0 and Mini Buffalo. Yes, Marielle got another kitchen. Let's just say her bedroom got a kitchen makeover. Last year's kitchen will be transplanted to Viv's parents' house where it will get plenty of use when we visit. The new kitchen is pretty BA. It'll be big enough for Marielle and Harper to play with at the same time and it will actually store all the kitchen gear that has been amassed to date. For Harper, her first Christmas consisted mainly of us opening many of her gifts without her knowledge (mainly because she's 5 months old and the concept escapes her). She got lots of great cuddly things; many of which will make their way into the baby bag and make their appearances at various restaurants over the coming weeks. One stuffed animal of note is her little soft buffalo who will sit on a shelf opposite a little ram that my CSU Alum brother got Marielle when she was born.

To conclude - abruptly, I might add - I'll leave you all with pictures: