Santa arrives!

It has been a wonderful holiday season.  The girls were amazed by the tree and all the Christmas decorations.  I was prepared to gate off the Christmas tree if they began to 'rearrange' the ornaments.  Lucky me, the girls showed just a wee bit of interest in removing the ornaments.  They mostly enjoyed looking at the ornaments and very gently touching them.  Although today as I was taking all of the decorations down Kate became very concerned, started crying, and pointing at the bare tree.  I had to explain (as well as you can to a 17 month old) that Christmas would come again next year and that we would put the tree up again.  Now did she understand?  Likely not, but a graham cracker and some milk seemed to ease their minds. 

On Christmas Eve Jason read The Night Before Christmas to the girls.  One of my favorite memories as a child was listening to my dad read on Christmas Eve.  We even had a special book that was illustrated by Grandma Moses.  A couple of years ago I was able to find and purchase one on Ebay so we can continue this tradition with the same beautiful book.

On Christmas morning, we woke up to see that Santa had made a visit overnight.  He left quite a bit for the girls.  They still haven't figured out how to unwrap gifts.  This allowed me lots of time to wrap gifts and stow them under the tree, knowing that chubby little fingers wouldn't rip them open before Christmas.  I am sure that as they get older we will have to make different arrangements to keep them out of the gifts.  We spent the morning opening all the gifts and playing.  Then Jason and I cooked a Christmas lunch and feasted.   

Jason reading The Night Before Christmas

The tree pre-destruction

The girls had no idea where to begin!

The LOVE their new chairs from Grammy and Boots

The new cell phones from the Rogers are a big hit.  Kate puts it up to her ear and says "A-Lo".  

The aftermath!