It's Christmas Day

This morning Madison jumped onto our bed as she promised she would last night.  It was quite an abrupt way to wake up, but with the rallying call of, "It's Christmas!", we were up and going.  We asked if there was anything under the tree, and she told us there most certainly was!

And so here were were again at Christmas morning.  Santa had eaten the cookies and drank the milk we left out, and the carrots were gnawed at somewhat.  I never understood why a reindeer would come into the living room, but I guess the carrots serve as some sort of incentive.  Fortunately, there were no reindeer droppings anywhere, but perhaps these are really well trained reindeer.  Or perhaps Santa brings the carrots up to the rooftop to feed the reindeers our treats, and then takes the remnants of the carrots back down and leaves them for us to see.  Either way, one thing is clear:  I'm spending way too long thinking about this.

We had the music playing and of course Mommy and Daddy had to have tea prepared before opening presents from anyone.  Also, we Skyped with Nana and Ba-Ba down in Daytona Beach, so they got to spend Christmas morning with us as well.  They were happy to see us and visa versa:  we were all wishing each other a Merry Christmas!

Then came the unwrapping!  It's always a moment to savor, and you try to slow it down as much as you can.  Of course, with Madison there were so many presents under the tree that it took her a bit longer to open all the things she got.  And she was quite happy with what she opened up.

This "The Greatest Showman" book of piano music was a bit hit, as was this game below:

She got a few games, but she also got quite a bit of jewelry and clothing, and she loved it all.  Of course, here was the big "Red Ryder BB gun Moment" of the morning, the last present that she forgot about, in different wrapping paper and under a different tree.

Santa brought us a Nintendo Switch for Christmas!  This is probably a present for Daddy as well, don't you think?

Not immediately afterwards, but just for a few moments, we had it plugged in and everything was working just right.  But we didn't play for too long, as we were soon over to Nana and Ye-Ye's house for our yearly Christmas dinner.  Aunt Shain and her family were there as well, and we all had a huge and delicious dinner, followed by another round of opening presents under the tree.  For years we've joked about Ye-Ye's father, who left all our presents under the tree in a grocery bag.  And this year, Ye-Ye and Nana thought it would be fun to do exactly that:  all our presents were in grocery bags under the tree, each bag with our name on it.  There were nice gifts in each bag, but also joke items like cans of sardines and Spam.  It was pretty funny!

We had dessert after that, and all too soon, it was over with and time to go home.  All this leading up to one magical day, and so soon we're at the end of it, a bittersweet moment of goodbye.  Sure, we got to go home and play with some of the toys we got - but it's always a quiet moment afterwards, and a pretty tired one.  You don't want the day to necessarily end so soon, but at the same time, it's been quite a bit of work getting here, right?

Still, we had some time tonight, and we played an old game of Bonkers, a board game from 1978.  Aunt Shain let us borrow it, and I've always wanted to try it out.  So fast forward to 2018, and I'm finally getting to play "Bonkers!"

It was actually really easy to learn and pretty fun to play.  We'll do it again, but after about two rounds, we decided it was time for a movie.  Madison was ready to move on from Christmas movies, so tonight we watched one of the presents found under the tree this morning, the movie "Ant-Man and the Wasp."  Which was awesome.

When it was over, we were all pretty tired and ready for bed.  We started a new book tonight, "Peter and the Shadow Thieves," which starts out fun.  We'll be in Neverland or London for the next few weeks.  We said our prayers tonight after reading from the Christmas devotional, and then it was time for sleep once again.  Tomorrow, we sleep in - and tomorrow we get to play with our toys.  Christmas time is here.