Merry Christmas {2013}!

For those of you who we might have missed on the Christmas card list due to moves or address changes or disorganization or carrier pigeons getting lost in snowstorms...

And a wonderful year it was for us!

Christmas Eve...

After Mass

A Christmas Eve gift exchange with the cousins & grandparents

With [Santa] hat hair...

And back at home, preparing for Santa...

Her note: "Does Rudolph have a red nose? From Marie Hjelmstad." (She's been asking me for months if it's really
red, and I keep saying that I don't know because I've never seen it). Santa's reply: "Ho ho ho, thanks
for the cookies!  Yes, Rudolph's nose is red, and when it's extra cold it gets extra red!  Be good this
year, and have a Merry Christmas! From, Santa."

After the kids were in bed, the big kids got to play Santa. 

A word of advice: Say your doting husband got you the sewing machine you wanted for Christmas last year, then mentions how nice it would be to have matching family stockings for next year...don't just pin pretty stockings on Pinterest and procrastinate for 364 days before actually starting them. Otherwise you'll have to hold yourself back from punching the clock on Christmas as it rings in 3am while you try to make good on your promise. I'm sure one day I'll look back and laugh. Yesterday was not that day. Thankfully, despite the sleep depravation and a few poorly-timed machine jams, they turned out a-okay!

Meanwhile, in the next room, "Santa" was also losing sleep during the assembly process...

And on Christmas Morning...

It was all worth it!

Putting baby Jesus in the fluffy Good Deeds Manger! Then adding Mary, Joseph, and the angel
because sweet girl didn't want him to get lonely.

Neeeeeeerooooom!
(banished shortly thereafter to the garage)

The boys in heaven...

...all of them!

Bacon! BACON!!!!

Part of Peter's 12 Days of Christmas from yours truly:
A coupon for Board Game Night, "Scrabble not included; other marriage-killing games also subject to veto."

 And finally, Christmas Dinner with Gran & Granddad

 I must've jinxed myself before by mentioning the birthday cake for Jesus...because guess who has two thumbs and totally forgot about it until we sat down at the table? Fortunately, there were plenty of cookies to go around. Sorry, Jesus!

Merry 2nd Day of Christmas--we hope the first day was full of joy & love, and pray that the next ten days of Christmas will be filled with just as many blessings, if not more! 

(And sleep, too!)