Christmas Festivities

Ah, the post you've all been waiting for. (OK, maybe not all of you, but perhaps some of you.) Just a warning that there are a lot of photos here, so if you're not related (or maybe even if you are) you may lose interest, but since this is mainly to keep a record for my own purposes, that's just how it's going to be.

December 23

Because we really like to get the most out of a holiday, we start celebrating Decmber 23rd, with a dinner, presents, reading the Christmas story and singing carols, with the Marsh family.

Here's my Grandpa Backman with Peter.
Amelia with her new Fancy Nancy doll.
The kids always congregate around their Uncle Dan.
Here's the whole crew (minus 6 - my brother Rich and his wife Sandra and their 3 kids, and my brother Joe.)
I'm not really sure what exactly my nephew Joey was so excited about here. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the American Girl books that Samantha was opening, but who knows, I could be wrong.
More opening and showing of gifts.
Shawn and Peter just chillin'.

December 24th

Christmas Eve

The girls busy decorating cookies to leave for Santa. I think there may have been more "Sprinklers" (in Duffy's words) than cookie on some of them. I'm sure Santa enjoyed them either way.
Christmas Eve afternoon, we headed over to my Grandma and Grandpa Backman's house for more food, presents and a reenactment of the Christmas story. I think there were 70-ish people here and about 40 that weren't. I don't know where we would have put them if they had all been in town and come.
Peter and I enjoying a moment.
The angels, shepherd, wisemen, star, Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus.
Here are my very own angels (Duffy and Amelia - one minus the halo you'll notice, Samantha - the star of the show, and Jonas - a wise man - fitting somehow.)
Straight from that party we headed to the somewhat more subdued and quieter Christmas Eve celebration with Grandma Cathy and Doug, where there was still more food (ebelskievers - a favorite) and more opening of presents for all.

Duffy and Amelia opening gifts.
Now we can make our own! (As soon as Cathy show us how.)
A little show and tell of said gifts.
Peter and Doug watching the chaos unfold.
Cathy and Amelia taking photos to document the occasion.
The kids in their new Christmas pajamas just before heading home to bed.

December 25

Christmas Day

And finally, Christmas morning. The kids are all lined up ready to see if Santa actually came.
Peter enjoying a new book.
Duffy enjoying some purple lip gloss that Santa must have mistakenly left in her stocking.
Jonas breaking into some new legos.
Samantha opening still another present!
And still more presents....
Once we were completely overloaded with gifts, we moved onto the traditional making and eating of beignets. (Because there wasn't enough of a mess in the house yet.)
Shawn and his "helpers."
I'm not sure if any of the sugar actually ended up on the beignets.The finished product.
After 3 days of gluttony, we decided to finish up the celebrating by going snowshoeing up Millcreek Canyon.
This hopefully made a small dent in burning off some of the sugar from the morning.
This photo makes me think of a cell phone commercial - but with all my favorite people in it.
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We are looking forward to the new year, and making another year's worth of memories.