Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning

On Christmas Eve, we ate homemade pizza, the Summers' tradition, for dinner and Grandma Hill joined us for that.

Logan with Grandma Hill

Then I put Logan to bed and we did the program after that. Nate and I were in charge of the program. We had Nancy read the Night Before Christmas, the Gee kids sang a song and the Cederlof kids sang a song, then we did the Nativity.

The kids gathered around as Grandma read the Night Before Christmas

Nate and I found a Nativity story that Nancy had and condensed it and changed a couple of songs to make it more kid friendly. Debbie brought the puppets that Gina had made for her and was her Christmas gift last year so we used those instead of dressing the kids up. It worked out nicely. They all sat in the middle of the floor and held up their character at the appropriate time so it made things a lot easier and not so chaotic. They each got 2 puppets. I played the accompaniment on the piano for the songs and Steve and Nate Cederlof did the narration. After the program, we played the game where you sit in a circle and pass the gifts to the left or right according to what is said in the story. Nancy always makes up the story every year. When the story ends, you open the gift that's in your hands. However, we can trade afterwards just in case a child got an adult gift or vice versa. Logan wasn't there, but he still got a little Tonka firetruck and I got a Skipbo dice game.
After that, the Cederlofs went home and the Gee kids went to bed at Grandma's. We were really excited for Santa to come visit Logan for the first time even though he really wouldn't understand.

The goods from Santa before Logan saw them.

Christmas morning, we got up at 7 and had to wake up Logan. He often wakes up at that time or earlier, so I didn't feel too bad about waking him up. The Gee kids and Logan (with me holding him) lined up youngest to oldest in the kitchen and then went on in to see what Santa brought. Logan probably enjoyed looking at the other kids more than at his toys, but he did get some playing time with them.

After the kids enjoyed their Santa gifts for some time and checked out their stockings, then it was time to open the gifts from family members. Logan really loved this part! Every time we would put a box in front of him, he would get really excited and shake his hands! He struggled unwrapping the gifts though so I had to help him with that and then we had to get the paper away really fast, otherwise it would end up in his mouth. But he got some great toys which was good because before, he only had rattles, teething toys, and stuffed animals. Now he has toys he can grow into and play with right now.

His Baby's First Christmas pajamas. Courtesy of Easton Hancock
Notice the large wet spot. That's what happens when we don't put a bib on!

Opening a gift

The lamb and book are from Stephanie and Pete

This penguin is from us (you push it and it pops back up)

The bee is from Grandma and Grandpa Summers

He's really concentrating on getting that open!

Logan's loot

We got a Toaster Oven from Nate's parents (they were going to have Amazon ship it to us when we were about ready to go home) and the cute Nativity puppets from Gina. I'm excited to use those.

This is the cute poem  Nancy wrote that was in the present we opened

We weren't going to give each other any gifts because we bought the Kindle Fire and had decided we would get books for our Kindle. But when we were out shopping for other people, I saw a CD of the Piano Guys (John Schimdt and a cellist) and decided I wanted that instead of a book. Nate still got a book though. After the opening of the gifts, we ate cinnamon rolls for breakfast and just had a good time relaxing. The Cederlofs came and we ate a delicious lunch with Ham, Au Gratin potatoes, etc. Sometime after lunch, we left to go to my parent's house to start the festivities there.