Thursday, December 29, 2011

Christmas 2011

In our German family tradition, we had Christmas dinner with my family on Christmas Eve.  We went out to my parents home, and my brothers were there as well, with their wives and kids.  We had Christmas dinner together and then the kids all opened gifts.  We do a Christmas gift exchange amongst all the cousins, with names drawn for gift giving.  The adults take part in a "white elephant' gag gift exchange.  We managed to pawn off a candle holder and one of my many old cameras.  In exchange, Margarit received a German beer stein, and I got cool chicken clock.
We finally got our kids home to bed by around 11:00PM.  We knew they would be really grumpy the next day as it was certain they would be getting up early to see what Santa had left under our tree.  When everyone got downstairs into our rumpus room in the morning the girls were all squeals and giggles over the big pile of gifts.  We made them wait while we lit the candles on our Christmas tree.


After admiring the candles for a few minutes, we put out all the flames and made sure there was no risk of a tree fire.  Then we let the girls tear into their gifts.  They did not disappoint us and for about half an hour there was a real flurry of activity.  I call this one... afternmath.


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