Enjoying a White Christmas

Christmas morning was fun, relaxed, and delicious. As we opened stockings and presents, Gma had an egg bake cooking in the oven. That was a fantastic treat once we had finished the presents portion of the morning. We cut back a lot on presents this year across the board - and no one seemed to mind a bit. In fact, everyone seemed to be able to enjoy what they did get a little more. 

Fiona was thrilled by the white board and dry erase markers she got for her room; Quinn immediately wrapped herself up in her new tie dye blanket; and Declan made good use of his new Battleship game. 

They had opened their big presents from us before we headed north because this year, they were actually big. Declan got an air hockey table that has proven quite popular and Quinn got a balance beam. We got Fiona a chair for her desk, but I fell victim to the risks of online ordering and it was waaaaaaaaaay too small for her! Post-Christmas break, it was returned and a new chair has appeared in its place. 

After we all thoroughly enjoyed Gma's egg bake, I pulled out the gingerbread house kits that I had bought for Thanksgiving that were never used (ahem, covid). I put together two gingerbread treehouses and then divided the family into two teams. It was Mike, Gpa, Q, and Dec vs Fiona, me, Gma, and Auntie. 

We had 20 minutes to decorate our treehouses and it was, of course, a competition that was taken VERY seriously. The end results were pretty impressive. 

Early afternoon, we headed out to Auntie Tracey's house to see everyone, including Gpa Vanneste. It was a beautiful day, so our gang spent most of the afternoon outside. Auntie Tracey and Uncle Kyle have a rather death-defying drop-off at the end of their hill, which of course meant we needed to sled it. There were a lot of wipeouts and bailouts - combined with a ton of laughter. Gpa watched from the window and thought we were all crazy!

Declan (and the girls) also spent plenty of time checking out Nate and Ben's new slot track. There were some serious races. Auntie and I spent our time placing cars back on the track. I think their favorite part was making the cars fly off around the corners. And, of course, there was playing with the cats too. That was probably Fiona's favorite part of the day. So when we got back to Gma and Gpa's, no one was allowed near Gpa until they were showered and wearing clean clothes! [And a convenient reason for me to require the showers that they very much needed]

We had a wonderful dinner back at Gma and Gpa's, played a few more games of Battleship, and started a movie to end our night. The day was a perfect balance of activity, downtime, outside time, and fun. We never felt rushed, but the day have a good amount of things to look forward to. As we tucked the kids in that night, they all agreed it was a very merry Christmas.