I’m easing back from my Christmas blogging break with a quick, photo-intensive recap of our Christmas.

We were excited to have Dave’s parents, aka Nana and Grandpa, here for the first Christmas in recent memory (they usually spend Thanksgiving with us instead, but couldn’t make it then this year, owing to those crutches you see in this picture):

I was determined to finally, for the first time ever, get some nice pictures of the kids with the tree. A facebook friend pointed out that I was helped by the fact that the white tree functions a lot like a giant flash:

I didn’t make much progress on the whole kids silhouetted against tree thing, but here’s a toddler with his recently groomed and therefore very distinct in silhouette form Scottie:

I was very excited about Abe and Christmas this year, since this is the first year where he’s old enough to really grasp the whole thing. And it was indeed adorable and fun to watch, although he’s still young enough that things got overwhelming for him at times. We still had a pile of presents left to open the day after Christmas, because he was just over it after awhile Christmas morning.

He was pretty interested in everyone else’s presents, though:

Gus, adorably, decided he wanted to make Abe a green 5 for Christmas (Abe’s favorite number and color), and he did, with some help from Dave on the sawing part:

Santa brought new bikes for Abe, Ari, and Milo (and my brother tuned up Gus’s hand me down bike so that it will actually stop when you use the brakes. We feel this is an important feature in a bike):

It’s kind of breaking my heart to think about how older Milo is likely to look by next Christmas, when he’ll have joined the teenage faction of our household:

The everyone in front of the tree shot was difficult to get this year, because Abe wouldn’t stop making funny faces. Here’s the best I could do:

I managed to get the two youngest into matching “gnome for the holidays” pajamas:

They pretty much knew they were getting the bikes, but I scored Black Friday Kindle Fires for everyone for $35, and there was genuine surprise. And now they can all stop using mine!

We managed to finish Abe’s tent in time (full post coming after New Year’s) for Christmas morning:

Later, lots of family came over for brunch and more presents. My brother and sister in law wore exciting Christmas sweaters (ordered, no doubt, back before the forecast called for 75 degree temps on Christmas):

And later in the afternoon/evening we went over to a friend’s house for their Christmas get together and closed out the evening there. All in all, it was a lovely Christmas, with lots of time with family and friends, and a toddler who only burst in overwhelmed tears once, by my count.

Back later in the week with some reminiscing about 2015 house stuff and some looking forward to 2016!