Making Merry

Our "official" holiday celebrations started on Christmas Eve, with a trip to the Zoo of all places! They do an amazing holiday lights display there, and since lights on the 24th is kind of our thing, its seemed like a great idea. It was gorgeous!

They had hot chocolate, and a special smores stand where you buy the fixing and make them yourself on surrounding fire pits!

After that it was time to head home, put out some milk and cookies, then straight to bed so Santa could do his work!

He came!

Christmas was wonderful. Honestly, while I've been enjoying our tree, and I was ready rather early, I've been a bit off for a few weeks so I really needed the magic of Christmas day to "reset" myself!

It worked. Seeing Gwen light up when she saw that Santa left her presents and filled her stocking (and squealing right along with her!) was so wonderful. Hearing her excitement at the presents she received, and at the simple things that have become so important (like cinnamon rolls for breakfast and A Christmas Story on the TV), was exactly what I needed - medicine for the soul.

There was so much geeky goodness... lots of Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Legos.

There was travel money, clothes, and movies... and we were all equally excited with all of it!!

Daisy was pretty darn happy with her stocking stuff too.

The rest of the day was lazy... we watched all three of the Hobbit movies while putting together Lego sets and playing with figurines. We ordered Chinese food for dinner, and were all ready for bed when it rolled around. It was a really great day.

I hope that your holidays, no matter what you celebrate, were everything that you needed too!