More Christmas

We woke up to do our own Christmas morning at home before going over to our respective family's houses.

The TV was Michael and my Christmas gifts to each other this year, so we just did stocking stuffers for Christmas morning. Here are our stockings, all stuffed:

Once Tessa realized that there were things in her stocking, she was anxious to get her paws on them. Here I am, trying to get it down. Not fast enough, of course.

Tessa immediately got to work ransacking her stocking and unwrapping her gifts.

Obligatory self-portrait.

While we opened our gifts, Tessa enjoyed one of the new chew sticks that Santa brought for her (he brought her a 100-pack of them since they are her favorite!). For the record, she also received what we have dubbed "Micro Bobo" (yes, Bobo #4 now!), and a stuffed turtle.

Soon after, we both left the house to go our separate ways. I still had gifts to exchange with my family (we always do it on Christmas morning), and Michael wanted to spend some more time with his. My brothers, mom, and I all exchanged gifts, then we had a pancake breakfast.

Tessa in front of the fireplace at my mom's house.

My mom and Tess. Cute pic.

Eventually, Michael met me over at my mom's, and we headed home for a few hours to unpack gifts and try to relax a little. Then we went back to my mom's to enjoy Christmas dinner with my family.

Are you exhausted yet from reading about all of this back and forth? Because yeah, it was exhausting. But it's worth it. I think we've done a good job achieving balance between spending time with both of our families. It works for now... and I think it'll still work once we have kids someday, but I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Overall, a great Christmas (as always). Now I need to work on recovering from it before we get to New Year's next week! Good thing I have all this time off of work.