It doesn’t matter how old you are because Christmas morning in our house is still a blast. Even Peter who is getting ready to head off to college next year was still excited to run down the stairs to see what Santa brought him. Everyone’s reactions to their big gifts were priceless. Peter couldn’t believe that he got a 3D printer, Emma was so surprised by her turntable and vinyls of her favorite artists, Abby was so happy with her new electric piano, and Madeline was just happy as could be with her new rainbow teepee and all the chocolate in her stocking. Everyone actually had fun on Abby’s piano and thought that was the coolest thing ever. After eating some chocolate Madeline saw that Santa had eaten the cookies and left a note. She tried reading it by herself. Then we got a call from Andrew from Germany. We each took turns talking to him and those that weren’t talking to him were in the kitchen eating cinnamon rolls. The kids were getting anxious to open up presents so we finished our conversations with Andrew and headed to the family room to open up all the presents. It was a mass of presents being opened left and right. Abby got to open up the first present since she found the pickle ornament first. The thing I love most about Christmas morning is watching the kids’ excitement every time they open up a gift. One of my favorite moments was when Mike opened up his gift from Peter. It was really more of an inside joke and we all loved watching Mike’s face when he opened it up. Mike had previously told the kids about how his dad bought him a plastic boat for the bathtub when he was 13 years old and how ridiculous that present was. So, Peter and I found a similar boat online and wrapped it up for Mike. It was such a fun moment to watch. Some of the other fun gifts that people got were the Nintendo Classic Lego Set for Peter, Diagon Alley Lego Set for Mike, Studio Ghibli DVD’s for Emma, Calico Critters Department Store and hand-knit animal dolls for Madeline, a Japanese heated toilet seat for Sara (oh yes), and LED rooms lights and Audio Technica headphones for Abby. It was a rather bounteous Christmas for everyone.
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