Belated Christmas Clean-Up

I'm ashamed. We just took the tree down this morning and de-holidayed the house. That took much longer than anticipated! In my defense, I didn't want to take down decorations while I was on break. That would be tantamount to acknowledging my return to work. And then, said return to work was so stressful that I fell asleep within two hours of coming home every day this week. So there you have it.

In addition to putting the decorations away, I've also finally downloaded all of the Christmas music to my I-Tunes. Next year, we won't have to bust out the CD player! It's a very exciting thought.

But as I was redecorating the halls and taking down the boughs of holly, it occurred to me that I never put up pictures of Christmas with Mike's side of the family. Without further ado, here you go!

Denise and one of her daughters

Mike and his brothers

other family pics

I must say, I'm so grateful that our two families get along. My parents have been coming to Christmas Eve almost since Mike and I started dating (and Denise and James have been bringing their family to Thanksgiving at my parents' house).

We gave our nephew E some DS games. He's right at that age where he can't quite read the directions for himself, but he's very impatient to start playing. So Mike showed him how to play the game...

... and then the brothers got intrigued by the game and took it away from young E. Ah, well. Boys will be boys, right?


I think the most popular gifts this year had to be the musical instruments, though. As you can see, everyone wanted to play!


Once the kids had unwrapped their presents they disappeared to enjoy the loot. That meant the adults had time to play games. This year, it was all about Hand and Foot... but I was too busy losing to take any pictures!

As always, we enjoyed the holiday. I am so grateful for our family--the one I was born into, and the one I was blessed with through marriage!