Christmas Morning, Part I

After dinner at my mom's on Christmas Eve, we got Nora into her pajamas and stayed for a while longer, but headed home by Nora's normal bedtime (7:00 p.m.). We did manage to snap this photo of the four generations before Santa came, though. :)

Once home, we read Nora "The Night Before Christmas" (thanks, Kara!) and put her to bed.

We did all of our wrapping on Friday night (the 23rd), which was wonderful--it was the first time ever that we weren't scrambling to wrap gifts on Christmas Eve. Instead, all we had to do was play Santa, which didn't involve much since we went pretty light with Nora's gifts this year. We got to work assembling Nora's kid table and chairs with a few glasses of wine and a fire in our fireplace. It was really nice.

Unfortunately, Nora was up from 3:00 a.m. to after 4:00 a.m., which was sort of miserable. I'm not sure if her ear was bothering her or what. (Did I mention she got another ear infection for Christmas this year? Just like last year. Except way less miserable than last year.) As a result, we were actually up before she was in the morning, giving us time to shower to get ready to go to my mom's before she was even awake.

But eventually she did wake up on her own, and we gave her a little cereal for breakfast before bringing her into the family room for the big reveal... which, you know, was relatively uneventful this year. I'm guessing it'll be a little more magical next year. :)

Still, Nora was highly amused by her "just my size" table and chairs, and got reacquainted with the Little People airplane that she got from my in-laws on Christmas Eve.

Then it was time to open stocking stuffers. Nora was sort of into it. She had fun pulling the gifts out of the stocking, and helped Michael unwrap a few of them.

She got a big girl plate and bowl and a Sippigrip.

Tessa had gifts in her stocking, too. She's really good at opening her own presents.

Here's Nora, studying the cover of her new movie (Despicable Me) from Santa. I think she's thinking, "Wait, this isn't Rio." (Her FAVORITE.)

After her Santa presents, we opened a few gifts from other people. Nora opened presents from Mary (her daycare provider), her "aunt" Donna (my mother-in-law's best friend), and then from "Pa" (my dad).

Pa got her Zig the Big Rig, as well as some extra Wheelies cars. Nora was pleased.

And here's Nora sitting in the middle of some of the aftermath. But we didn't have long to sit around--we had to head to my mom's for my family's Christmas morning breakfast!

How did Christmas morning go at your house? What were your favorite gifts this year? Are your kids "into" Santa yet? It seems like Christmas will just keep getting better and better as Nora gets older. What toys were the biggest hits with your little ones?