Merry Christmas from our family to yours

Hope your holidays are merry and bright.

We lit the luminaries at my folks’ house last night like we have for decades. It’s always a fun time with family, friends, and neighbors. I think we started the tradition when I was around the girls’ age. And have done it ever since.:

Now all the “kids” have kids:

Afterwards, TubaDad and I easily finished up our last-minute Santa duties because the girls fell asleep on the way home (YES!!!). Luckily my mom had two new nightgowns stashed at her house so we could get them all prepped and open to the idea:

Good thing the girls had put out the cookies and reindeer chow earlier in the day, because they certainly weren’t up for anything other than snoring when we got home. Their notes crack me up. I think that they think that Santa might be a little slow on the uptake and require extra help, ya know?:

We woke up bright and early (ouch) this morning to the sounds of two veryveryvery excited little girls galloping down the hall.

Santa brought them jam-packed stockings and the electronic pups they had asked for. Ah the joy.

And they were thrilled to find the notes that Santa and Chippey left for them. I’m actually going to miss that little elf dude. We had a lot of fun with him (in a lazy oh-crud-I-forgot-to-move-the-elf-tonight-hurry-throw-him-somewhere-funny kind of a way).

My folks came over later to open even more presents, and my NASA-engineer dad was immediately pressed into duty installing one of the girls’ gifts. Can you see what it is?

Oh yeah, that’s right. The cousins in Texas sent over a zipline, which was successfully hooked up after my dad thoroughly explained the meaning of catenary to us. Frankly I didn’t follow the discussion very well, and in fact am quite proud that I even remembered the word.

Alrighty, I’m off to rummage through the Christmas rubble and see if I can find those Peanut Blossom cookies that I hid from the rest of the family. Merry Christmas!