Favorite moments Christmas 2008

This year was the first time we spent Christmas in our own home after 9 years of marriage! We celebrated German style, with the "Christkind" bringing the presents on Christmas eve while the kids and parents were out for a walk to look at Christmas lights. We lit real candles on the tree, sang Silent Night, O Tannenbaum and a few others. The kids each opened their one "big" present. There were a lot of presents under the tree, but then again there were 9 people in the house! We had the traditional dinner that I grew up with: peas in a cream sauce, rice and ham. Then we were too exhausted to open up anything else, so Christmas continued the next morning. We hung up real socks in stead of stockings and Santa surprised us by switching them for fancy stockings!

Here are a few of my favorite moments:
-when the kids walked in the door after their walk, Rebecca was so overwhelmed she started crying. It was cute.
-Joseph immediately went to the presents but to my surprise, he grabbed the smallest present of all. It was actually a thing of gum wrapped up for Rebecca. He wouldn't let go of it. He kept bringing other people the bigger presents but held on to his little present.
-Rebecca gave me a bunch of shoes for Christmas (I bought them for myself, but had Warren tell her they were a surprise for me). I knew she would enjoy giving me something. After I opened them and showed her how happy and surprised I was she jumped on me with a big bear hug. She was so happy to have made me happy, it was one of those precious motherhood moments.
-Joseph (who hadn't been eating well for days) absolutely LOVED Christmas Eve dinner. He ate and ate and ate.

The magic of Christmas made my little girl cry

Joseph holding on to his tiny present

The doll house (that has been in storage for 5 years!)

Enjoying that Christmas dinner

Just relaxing

Hosting Christmas for the first time

Hanging up our real socks as stockings.

The shock of finding a fancy Princess stocking

Joseph walking off with the right stocking even though no one told him which one to grab!