Christmas Day

Christmas Morning!  

So exciting!  

My kids can't get enough of it and they were so depressed when they thought none of the cousins were going to be there to "run down the stairs..." a tradition we have had since even I was a child.  We would always have stairs in our house and would have to wait til all the kids were gathered to take pictures. It felt like forever when they made us wait even a few seconds.  Xoe & Xanthe have had this tradition too since they were little and is the main thing they look forward to.  So you can imagine how happy they were to share it with their little brother, and their 7 other cousins who were there over night.

I've posted a few pictures that seem redundant, but it's so funny for me to watch the shenanigans from picture to picture.  Most of all, look at Spencer's face.  He's staring into the living room at all the presents under the tree. (Little does he know the goods are in the other room).  Look at the sequence of pictures.  He slowly is looking to see what is for him.

He hasn't noticed yet...

Kind of gauging what's going on.  "Sissy" Xanthe is explaining the process of what's happening.

Hey...what's in there?... and the sequence starts...

Trying to get a serious look...

All the kids!

Let's get this show on the road!

... and they're off 

(I swear I put spencer's pants on right after he ran downstairs)

...already putting the presents to use.  Xanthe's painting designs on her YoGabba fabric with her enamel art kit and has already broken out the ice cream making machine.

I'm sad I didn't get pictures of the rest of the festivities.  Here's what else happened that day:

-Went to church and almost all of us sang in our siblings' ward choir

-Fancy Dinner with Chicken Pillows (another tradition that my mom has sworn off after this year)

-Kids' Gift Exchange (we pick names each year.  The kids have a really good time exchanging gifts)

-Adult Gift Exchange (same as kids exchange.  We really take our time opening presents seeing what each other received. We take our gift giving seriously.)

-White Elephant Gift Exchange (the adults attend so many of these during the season that the kids started to wonder what it was. So we had them do one... without gag gifts... didn't think those kinds would be well received.)

-Schultz Heritage Stories (About 9 years ago, my brother Ben started a tradition where each family member writes a memory and we assemble into a book.  This has become one of our favorite times as many of the stories keep us in hysterics as we either walk down memory lane, or someone graces us with something that happened during the year that they purposely kept secret just so they could retell it at Christmastime).