Christmas festivities

Christmas is always so much fun, and a whirlwind it seems! We love love having all our family close by and getting to see them on a regular basis. But when we get together, look out! On my side of the family there are about 50 now!! And on mark's side, our little 8 has quickly multiplied by way of diapers into 16! We have carried on many old traditions, as well as started a few new ones. This includes visiting Santa at the Huish's in Poway, seeing lights with hot chocolate, visiting the Temple and seeing the lights there, ward Christmas parties, get together's with Mark's cousin's, gift exchanges, we started caroling as a family (that was hilarious as Brielle just walked right into the first house, not knowing you sing from the porch) making tamales christmas day and much more.
Christmas Eve we go up to my Aunt's house in Jamul for dinner, Nativity, Santa and gift exchange. Then we're off to Mark's brother's house for Mexican hot chocolate and German tante Heide cake. Christmas Morning, we wake up and open presents then go over to my mom and dad's for presents and breakfast. Then Mark's family comes over to our house late afternoon to make tamles and have a gift exchange. We added a $1 white elephant exchange this year to the mix with Mark's siblings. Whoever brought he best $1 gift (with receipt to prove!) got to pick which gift they wanted. And then we white elephant'ed the rest. You know, nothing says Christmas like a $1 pair of painting overalls and the movie "Saschuatch".

Chase was excited for Christmas Eve festivites.

Our family always has the tradition of acting out the Nativity Scene. Which our kids call the "Activity scene". Its always fun. There always seems to be a baby around to play the baby Jesus. Well, this year in my family 6 babies were born! So starting with the oldest (Chase) they all got about 2 minutes in the manager for their glory and photo op.




Brielle decided to forego her angel costume and be one of the Kings. And Blake wanted to be the ever trusty donkey.

While everyone was waiting for Santa to come, Mark and my brother in law Kyle decided to put on a little impromtu show. They thought it would be funny to pretend they had been taking guitar lessons and play some excerpts from a CD they had just finished recording. Complete with a CD cover with ridiculous photo shopped pictures of themselves and funny song titles to show off to everyone. It was pretty hilarious because everyone kept waiting for them to start playing and they kept starting and stopping because they "Couldn't get the tuning right". My grandmother was especially excited and couldn't wait to hear them play and sing. They never did, and didn't have the intent to. Those guys, they're always messin around. They finally put on "their CD' becaue they just couldn't get it right live and it was some orchestra playing christmas music. THanks for the laughs guys! The elders who had come that night then showed them up by playng and singing their version of "The first Noel". Very nice.



Blake was the only one of our kids who was excited to sit on Santa's lap. As you can see, Brielle was terrified of the "Fake guy int he santa suit". And Chase was very leary of the bearded man.

Chase woke up after the present-opening had begun and was a little disoriented!!


Santa found out a couple days before Christmas that all Brielle really wanted was a bike. Poor Santa had a tough time producing one in such a pinch!

We had a great Christmas filled with lots of good memories!