It's Christmas

It's Christmas again, and although Mom and I were up, Maddie has never once gotten up early for Christmas in her life.  She never trounces down the stairs, never bounces up and down on our bed attempting to wake us up before dawn while shouting, "It's Christmas!  It's Christmas!"  No, it's a silent night, and a silent morning for a while.  The piano room's decor looked wonderful this morning, including this new ornament I picked up this year of Jonah and the giant fish.

That completes the set of Bible stories - you can see Daniel and the Lion's Den in the background here.  This piano room tree is getting crowded with ornaments now!  We keep adding more each year, and might even have to add a new tree somewhere!  But what we have is fine for now, of course.  The Star Wars tree by Maddie's door has been lit the whole season - it's in the window so you can see it from the street.

You can also see the advent calendars on the floor there, finally complete.  Each morning's routine is finally done, as are the visits from the elf.  Because last night, we had the visit from Jabba the Hutt!

Okay, I meant Santa.  But here's that new ornament for the Star Wars tree this year, one of Santa's Sail Barge.  I meant... Jabba's Sail Barge.  It's a loud ornament, projecting this entire conversation to the house between Jabba, C-3PO and Han Solo.  It's a fun button to press while Maddie's still asleep... but if you really want to wake her up on Christmas morning, or at least get her out of bed, the best thing to do is get this laptop, find that really awful version of "O Holy Night" by Steve Mauldin, and play it super loud, right there by Maddie's bedroom door.  It's epic!

Maddie came down this morning, and yes, it's Christmas.  You can see Santa visited again with lots of toys and presents... and a dinosaur.  More on that later!  But Mom made us tea and we had music playing and a virtual fireplace too.  Maddie played the role of Santa, looking through the bottom of the tree and delivering presents to each of us in small stacks on the couch.  And then it was time to see what we got, because it's Christmas!

These are just a few of the highlights, but Maddie was wanting this chicken, which is a chicken from a video game made real.  There were also more Funko Pop snowmen, larger versions of the ones she's been opening each day of the month with her mini character calendar.

This gift below was a great one though, and Maddie got busy with it right away, not long after she opened it.

It's a photo album for Polaroids, which is pretty handy given that she's been putting them - up until now - into a can.  Photo albums used to be a thing for regular 4x6 photos, but nowadays with digital images, these albums are not as necessary... unless you have a Polaroid.

She even got busy decorating the cover right away!  Meanwhile, at the Nativity set, I don't know if you remember this, but Doc Brown set the time machine's arrival date for Christmas morning and...

It's Christmas, and we were having a bit of fun, and we were sending pictures and wishes to everyone this morning.  The annual cookie contest with the Arocho family was concluded with a clear winner this year, and there were all sorts of family pictures in front of trees.  Here's a family in front of a tree, in fact:

The Porg Family was there in the living room this morning, perched up in a nice spot to watch the proceedings as we opened all our presents.

These were some unusual presents, some commemorative silver dollars to add to a collection.  And speaking of collections, we got some more coffee too!

Indiana Jones themed flavors!  And there's one from "Loki" too, complete with a Ms. Minutes there, looking rather evil!

Maddie got this hockey jersey, and hockey tickets too - and beads for some necklaces and bracelets.

And yes, these are cruise tickets.  Not really tickets, but I did that a few times this year, making up imaginary tickets because they don't have actual tickets to put in your hands but rather digital things for your phone.  But here's something you can hold:

Mom got a few things this morning, including a framed picture and lots of items for the birds outside, including this feeder.

Maddie got some Edge merch, including this sweatshirt, and yes, a new uniform as well.  She'll be ready to tackle and kick more people in 2024.  She was already wearing this sweatshirt tonight.

And this dinosaur had more made-up tickets.  And candy.  But those tickets are for a visit to Jurassic World Exhibit next year.  Okay, the first day of next year.  Which is like a week from now.

Here's that new uniform, and here below... is hot chocolate!

Mom makes incredible hot chocolate.  It was good to take a break and enjoy some of that wonderful stuff!

Maddie's making faces because I'm taking pictures... and speaking of taking pictures, she also got a Polaroid carrying case, and that was pretty cool.

She was having a nice Christmas morning.  And we all were, opening one gift after another.  So many gifts this morning!

Here's a little something from Buc-ee's!  Some of these things we've been holding on to since our last visit to these places.  We've had some gifts since last summer.  Part of the fun with Mom and I is filling out the tags and writing down who each gift is from.  Rather than be "Santa" or even one of us, the gifts are from people like Bob Ross, Tiffany Aching, Sidemeat, PSY, The Powerpuff Girls, Cobra Bubbles, Mrs. Scrubitt, and so on... and each name is usually a clue as to what is inside.  

Here is a nice gift from Phoebe White, the up and coming musician who we first learned about this year.  Mom picked up her recording with Riders in the Sky this summer, and for Christmas, I got her this gospel CD.  But Phoebe personally wrote a Christmas card to us, and as you can see she also signed her name at the top of the CD as well, which was all really sweet.  We'll be listening to more of her music on our next trip up to Tennessee!

Ah yes, the crown jewel of calendars.  Don't ask me why I had so much trouble getting this one.  It was like Howard Langston trying to find Turbo Man.  I was all over Gwinnett Saturday, spending hours at the Mall of Georgia for no reason, fighting crowds and going to calendar places.  Leave it to Lakeshore Mall to save the day - there was one copy left there.  And I think it's because no one else was going to Lakeshore Mall.  Anyway, the gift was under the tree, and Maddie was happy to see it!

It's Christmas, and it's a fun time together.  We had the wrapping paper thrown about, and then collected and put in big bags.  All the opened presents were placed under trees, with some of it already being worn our being looked at or played with.  It was a blessed morning!

We went over to Nana and Ye-Ye's house after that, and as you can see, there were plenty of presents there too!  

We had a big meal there, and there was even the White Elephant exchange game, and lots of candy and sweets and cookies and... well, it was everything we usually have at Christmas at the grandparents' house.  

It was very nice.  We got home, and yes, we were actually pretty tired.  We watched the latest episode of "What if...?" and then just spent a lot of time packing and cleaning up.  We got to bed after reading, and prayers.  It was a very nice day.  It's Christmas!