Christmas 2011 Unwrapped

We had another successful holiday season in our house. We manage to spread the holidays across a whole week because of visiting with two sides of our family. The kids are one day going to ask how come Santa visits each grandparents' house on different days. My answer for all things Santa? "It's magic!"

Our first Christmas was at Grandparents H.'s house nearby. A wonderful meal, of course, and a great round of gift giving and receiving, including handsewn goodies and lovely full silver setting in our pattern. Here's the kids dressed up for the Christmas meal:

Then it was on to visit my parents in Washington DC for our second Christmas this past weekend. We had a nice lowkey visit with nothing more planned than Christmas itself, which is more than enough. The kids enjoyed repeated viewings of "Finding Nemo" and several visits to the brand new fancy playground literally directly across the street from the house. We all enjoyed the wonderful food my mom prepared -- chicken pot pie on Christmas Eve and roast beef on Christmas Day.

Some Christmas shots:

The Pez in the stockings was a hit.

J's stocking had an "Emergency Clown Nose" for crisis situations. Brilliant!

Thanks again to our wonderful families for making the holidays so special and joyful for us and our kids. We are truly thankful and so, so lucky.