Christmas morning

We had a lovely Christmas morning, with the girls appearing in our bedroom promptly before 7 a.m. raring to go into the living room and see whether Santa arrived. While I dragged myself out of bed and made myself presentable, Bryan playfully teased the girls, until all of them were a noisy laughing group. He finally allowed them to check their stockings by the fireplace, then teased them again not allowing them into the living room with the Christmas tree.

You'll be thankful that I didn't upload the home movie he took of the girls seeing their Santa presents for the first time. That little squeal that used to be so cute when they were younger has turned into a full-fledged scream AAAAiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee with lots of jumping up and down. (Honestly, I'm not so sure why they're so overwhelmingly surprised - they have always received exactly what they asked for from Santa Clause. We do quite a bit of guiding/vetting before they visit him at the mall.)

Cameron received the bow & arrow set and a target. She became interested in archery when we visited the Renaissance Festival in November.

Brenna asked Santa for an Our Generation Doll named Jennie. The doll's full name is now Geneveieve Marie and Brenna seems perfectly happy even though it is not an American Girl doll. I wish they'd had Our Generation dolls available last year.

It wouldn't be Christmas in our house if the girls didn't receive a lot of BOOKS. One of Brenna's books this year was "How to be a Princess" that included lift-flaps, small letters and notes that you pull from attached envelopes, and had many tips. As you compare the next two photos, can you tell what princess attribute they are reading about?

If you guessed "Posture" then you are exactly right!

Brenna's last present was actually the first one I purchased this Christmas season. She began asking for a Snuggie after seeing the very first commercial and did not stop until she opened the present. It's an adult "one-size fits-all" but she loves it.

After breakfast, before we packed the car to head to Brad & Amanda's home in McKinney, Cameron & Bryan spent a little time in the backyard practicing with her new bow & arrow set. She loves it.

Santa visit

Every year we go see Santa so the girls can tell him what they want. Since Santa arrives at the mall in mid-November, we usually go see him early before the lines get ridiculously long.

Usually.

I don't know what it is about this year, but since Thanksgiving I can hardly catch my breath. I finally found a free afternoon to take the girls to see Santa, but it was on a weekend and Bryan was out of town. Undaunted, I had the girls dress up and we went to the mall. At first I thought the line wasn't terribly long - 45 min to an hour maybe - so instead of walking all the way around to the formal entrance, we just ducked under the rope. We were there about 5 minutes before the lady in front of us turned around and told us that she had been tagged the last person before Santa's lunch break. Sure enough, her photo order form said "Last". She pointed to the formal entrance, which had been roped off, and there was another line already in place for after his hour-long lunch break.

Hm... 45 minutes for this line, an hour for lunch, and a good 30 minutes according to the other line. No way.

So I promised the girls we'd try to go on a weekday evening and last night we finally accomplished our task.

The girls had dentist appointments at 4, Bryan met us at the house about 5 and we were in line by 6 p.m. Forty-five minutes later.... we arrived at a very tired looking Santa, who nevertheless brightened and smiled at the girls, inviting them to tell him what they wanted for Christmas. As the girls tell him, he glances up at me waiting for that slight nod that it's okay to say, "I think I might have some of those left at the workshop. I'll put one aside for you."

The "elf" who took our photo leaned over and said, "Your girls were the easiest photo I've taken all day."

I hear that a lot.

I thought it came out beautiful myself.

(You might want to check out our Santa blog post from two years ago to remember how much we appreciate this Santa. I also love that Brenna and Cameron are wearing the same dress 2006/2008. Did the dress shrink or is Brenna taller/larger at 6 than Cameron was at 7?)