Christmas At Our House!

We hosted another holiday at our house this year. Instead of driving to my parents house in Abilene, most of my family came to our house.  It was the four of us plus my parents, one of my sisters and her two kids, one of my brothers, and my niece, who flew in from Nashville.

Everyone did a great job on Christmas Eve helping out in the kitchen, whether it was preparing the food or washing/drying the dishes.

Unfortunately, poor Kaitlyn came down with a terrible ear infection from a cold she was just getting over.  She was in pain and tried her best to enjoy the festivities when she could.

My sister, Dominique, was in pain after cutting and taking out the seeds from a bunch of jalapenos to make some poppers.  Her hand is trying to cool off in some cold water.  I said it was worth the pain because the poppers were soooo good (stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped with bacon).  I don't know if she agreed with me!

When Kaitlyn was feeling better, she enjoyed time with one of her cousins and their American Girl dolls.

Here are my parents snuggling on the couch.

I was able to get a picture with Kaitlyn before she ran off to play.

Of course, it's just not Christmas Eve without 24 hours of A Christmas Story playing on TV.  Love that movie!!!  (When Dominique and I were little, we re-enacted the "show Mommy how the little piggies eat" part.  My mom got sooo mad and still can't stand that movie to this day!)

My brother brought me some beautiful flowers!!!

We had a traditional Mexican Christmas Eve meal of homemade tamales and homemade posole.  We had these yummy foods growing up, so I love that we are passing on the tradition.  

We like to open gifts on Christmas Eve so it was time to head to the formal area and pass out the gifts.  Santa was generous.

We are a blessed family.

The grandparents even brought something for their granddog-Paul Mitchell dog shampoo.

I don't think Princess was too impressed.

Santa joined with Craig and I and got Preston and Kaitlyn their own iPod Touch.  They were ecstatic!!!

Soon, it was time to head to bed and we set out some sweet tea and Mexican Wedding Cookies for Santa (his fave at our house).

Christmas morning came quickly and we headed downstairs to see Santa's goodies devoured.

The kids headed straight to their stockings and found iTunes gift cards to use for their iPods.  Santa is so smart!!!

Surprisingly, something was left on my stocking and it wasn't from Santa.

It was a small gift from my hubby of 13 years since we were celebrating our anniversary that day (yes, we got married on Christmas).  He got a long stem rose box from his floral department and filled it with my favorite coffee pods and dark chocolates.  I absolutely loved it!!!  He says it was all his idea and there was no research done on Pinterest.  It's definitely pin worthy though!  We will celebrate our anniversary some more on a later date.

As tradition, Craig made biscuit donuts for Christmas breakfast.

It wasn't too long before it started snowing...and snowing...and snowing.  I usually have a huge aversion to snow from previous experiences of driving in it.  However, since we stayed home all day, it was very nice and pretty to have a White Christmas!

We ate dinner around 5 pm and had so much food.  We had turkey breast, spiral ham, and all the yummy sides to go with it.

We stayed up until almost 1 am playing Pictionary Man and charades with the Taboo cards.  We laughed sooo hard!

The next morning, we woke up to this beautiful, peaceful blanket of snow.

Everyone left that day and I took time to reflect on the holiday and all the fun that was had.  It was a relaxing, peaceful Christmas that I look forward to again and again.