Christmas Morning (or all I want for Christmas)

This year, we decided to experiment from our usual Christmas morning chaos. Instead of getting everyone individual presents, I opted for a large, family gift.  We were pretty excited about it too.  I have been planning this all year and started buying everything back in February.  I got each of the older adult children a gift, and each family of grandchildren a gift.  We talked to the little girls about a family gift this year so that we could prepare them for the moment when the tree was not surrounded by presents all the way to the stairs and down the hall.  Christmas morning comes extremely early in our house!  The girls woke up at 2:30am and went upstairs to the Christmas tree.  The rule in our house is: If you get up early, you can have your stocking, but you can't open anything else until mom and dad get up.  Somehow, the rule works better with these last three children than it ever did with the older ones!  The girls all opened their stockings and tromped around in the library until we (John and I) finally got up about 8:00am.  I refused to get up earlier on the principle that the girls kept me awake half the night with their stomping and excitement.  Next year, I need a better rule!!!  Our day was pretty amazing!  The family got a Wii for Christmas. 

I put every part in a box, than put all the boxes in a big box with styro-foam peanuts.  Then I wrapped the big box so the girls wouldn't be able to guess what it was.  We told them it was a puppy, so Kayla shook the box, but when their was no noise inside, she knew we were playing with her.

 

Here is the picture of them opening the small box that has the actual Wii inside.  You can see all the other boxes behind the girls.

 

The big grin tell in all!  In Kayla's words, "Mom, this is the best Christmas ever!"  We headed downstairs to spend the day glued in front of our TV with the new Wii game system.  I even have to admit that I did not mind a bit and we all had a great time!  The best part, I didn't even have to take off my pajamas!

We hope that your Christmas was just as happy and relaxing as ours has been!