Celebrating Christmas

 We did have a lovely Christmas Day for us.  Magical things happened the night before, and I KNOW I took pictures, but the tree and stocking photos have vanished and I cannot find them.  So pretend you see glorious pictures of the tree and my beautiful stockings.

I love having oder kids.  We negotiate the wake up time the night before.  They lobbied for a 6am go-out-to open-stockings time and an 8am wake up everyone time.  It was lovely.  Katie had arrived at 9:30pm on Christmas Day, so most of the kids were out late picking her up.  Sleeping in was nice and some of the children needed to be awakened at 8!

Then we opened the loot and it was quite enjoyable.  The kids had picked out (multiple!) gifts for each other and were excited to see how their thoughtful selections were received.  It was fun to have Katie with us as well.

Rylee enjoyed the festivities.

Josh has gone vegan, so his candy options were limited. He was thrilled with the candy cane.... and the cool socks. 

Of course we needed  picture of Levi under the tree.

And he may have been photobombed. 

Check out Delaney's awesome Olaf leggings!!

Sometimes I think I am funny!  Callie loves to make Yakisoba, so I got her a giant container of yakisoba sauce.

 She was more impressed with other gifts. 

Katie enjoyed the loot-fest as well. 

Marian received things that made her happy. 

This just cracked me up, Marian peering deeply into the gift bag. 

Spoiler Alert: It was this sweet Llama Onesie! 

And who doesn't love this cute face?! 

 She is trying to guess what is in the wrapping. (She was wrong!)

How I spent my Christmas Day

 We had a slightly different Christmas day this ear.  My niece Katie was flying in to visit us and things did not go as planned with her flights.  Thus she ended up not arriving in time for Christmas.  So we postponed it.  The kids enthusiastically thought that was a great idea.

While everyone else was getting up early, we slept in.  I did let the kids pick one gift to open and they had fun with that.

Josh was very excited about the gifts.  The kids may have gone a little overboard, but they wanted to get loot for each other and I did not want to suppress their generosity!

So many choices!

Marian wasn't sure how she felt about they breech from tradition, but she was happy to open a present.

 Callie was all ready for Christmas festivities.

We went out to the mall for Christmas dinner at the food court there.  Since we are in Japan, they don't really close down for Christmas, so we did not feel guilty. 

Marian tried Taco Rice for the first time.  She liked it. 

 Josh already ate his meatless taco rice, and Rylee is enjoying her Udon noodles.  

Of Course we did Gingerbread cookies!

I love this little goober! 

She really did have fun decorating. 

This year they managed to keep it to a reasonable amount of frosting and accoutrements. 

....Well, mostly. 

It was fun having all the kids decorate.  The best part is that the girls also did a fabulous job of making the cookies.  All I did was make the dough and they did the rest!  I LOVE having the kids grow up and become so self sufficient!  And I love how fabulously their cookies turned out.  They were quite delicious as well as lovely.

Finally found some winter!

 We are still running around in shorts over here. It is still in the mid to high 70's with is not quite Christmas weather!  The YM planned an ice skating trip and invited the YW to join.  My YW jumped at that offer and I managed to weasel out of having to drive and sent them off.  The lovely leaders thoughtfully sent some phots and now you can enjoy them as well!

Marian, in case you didn't recognize her in her sweet hat.

Callie in the middle of the crowd. 

Delaney getting a ride from her friend, "Bob". 

This time, I knew to send them off with cup-o-soup to feed and warm them.  Delaney took advantage. 

Marian was great on the ice.  I heard she was a natural.

Drama, Drama, Drama!

 Josh started something with his discovery of his acting talent.  Callie started with the Drama Club at the high school, and she prepared a monolog and dialog and tried out for Far East Drama.  Spoiler:  She made it!  So Callie is going to perform in Iwakuni in February with Far East Drama, and we are incredibly proud of her for pushing herself and trying something difficult for her.

Rylee also joined the drama club, at the elementary school.  She practiced for weeks for her little play.  The group put on a 30 minute version of "A Christmas Carol" and Rylee was The Ghost of Christmas Present.  She was cute!  And did a great job.  She worked very hard to learn her lines and it paid off.