Christmas Eve

I think this year was the best Christmas Eve we have had as a family. Christmas Eve is a marathon for us starting with brunch with my family, stopping off at a friends Christmas party and ending with Stephenson family Christmas. Don't worry, there was still time for naps squeezed in there. I made sure.
A few snapshots of Keegan Brunch...

For dinner Denise cooked the biggest spread, she totally outdid herself this year. I wish I had taken pictures of the food because to me, pics of food are up there with pics of cute kids. Can never get enough.

Sammy, our nephew now 16 and so old, will always be Samster the Hamster to us :o)

Sean was VERY excited about Santa coming.

Sweet Em opening gifts.

Once Grandma pulls out the Buzz Lightyear dart gun, children gather round.

Fin playing with one of Denise' pinterest gift creations.

Dennis opening our gift to him. The beloved family dog Larry passed away last month so I found an ornament I could put his picture in. We miss Larry!

Blurry but hilarious. The funniest gift of the night was Denise gave Emma and Fin horse costumes and cowboy hats and they wore those costumes and chased each other around the apartment for an hour. They looked so stinkin funny and took turns being the bad guy. Cole was in tears to "Wear a horsey" which was pretty comical too.

We ended the night with tired boys opening one present each (new jammies...shocker every year) and setting out Santa food.

Pat and I died laughing because Fin helped me set out Santa and Reindeer food and Cole watched this and yelled, "I get it for Santa..." and ran to open the fridge. Fin helped him open the fridge and Cole without hesitation grabbed the bottle of Vanilla Rum and toddled over to put it next to Santa's food for Santa. Pat assured him Santa was very appreciative.

There was much intensity from Cole over eyeballing Santa's cookies. I felt so bad we forgot to bake Santa cookies that day but I pitched it to the boys that Santa actually LOOOVES stale gingersnaps from our pantry. What a coincidence.

The boys conked out right away and we got everything set up for the morning and collapsed ourselves. Pat fell asleep fully clothed on our bed if that tells you anything about how tired we were.