Christmas 2020

It's possible the Christmas letter reminded scores of folks to check the blog and here I am not making posts in a timely manner. Also! I published this last night, and it appeared to work fine on the desktop, but I was unable to see the photos on my phone. When I got back on this morning, there the pictures were on the desktop, but still not the phone. I'm not sure what the problem was, but I downloaded them all and re-uploaded them so hopefully you can see them. 

Sam's folks came on Christmas Eve with a bounty of gifts. It was so frigid all they could really do was take a quick picture and then leave, despite the festive outfits. 

The kids opened a special gift from them Christmas Eve night, which were wooden boxes that Papaw had made and Grandma Mary burned their names into, filled with treasures. 

We watched Christmas Eve service on the TV. The kids seemed marginally more interested than they are in the regular Sunday service on the TV. Maybe because we lit candles and sang carols and their dad was featured in a video, or perhaps because it was somewhat shorter. 

Sam's video: 

Spark was unbothered by the fuss and tree and surplus of gifts: 

Sam and I were up at least an hour and a half before the kids. 

Blurry family photo with the tripod and timer: 

Weren't they so patient? And didn't they get a truly ridiculous number of presents? The very large bag for Leah is just various stuffed animals that had been in storage in the basement since this summer. 

Leah's aunt and uncle in New Mexico sent this wonderfully large, soft elephant that she temporarily gave the unfortunate name of "Trump-o" to. You can see James is reading one of the books he got behind her. 

Amelie reading one of her book gifts in the middle of opening as well: 

Sam made cinnamon rolls and bacon for breakfast and we had Christmas Pizza for supper. (This reminds me that one year he accidentally put cumin instead of cinnamon in & then this year, I thought I'd grabbed the gold sprinkles to sprinkle on top of the gingerbread house but instead I had grabbed ... the oregano. I was able to blow most/all of the flakes off and didn't tell the kids, who didn't seem to notice.) 

We zoomed with my side of the family for Bingo in the afternoon: 

I found some sparklers from this summer and put them in the kids' stockings. They turned out to be a little bit of a dud but they enjoyed them nonetheless. 

I really should have taken a video of the kids opening their gifts - there was joyful shrieking for part of it, and I don't even remember which gift(s?) that all the commotion was over. They took quite a long time, as they wanted to stop and play and/or read everything as soon as it was unwrapped. 

Since I had to re-publish the post, I added two more pictures. One of Leah's gifts (I'm not sure who from - maybe Nana Jana?) was a snowman craft, which we made and hung up on the door. The kids got lots of art supplies and games, which we've been using on the break. Leah and I are the two most interested in the mosaic sticker puzzles, but there has been lots of Clue and Battleship and Sega Genesis mini.) 

And Amelie in her Christmas PJ's - this was back on "holiday sweater" day at school.