Christmas 2008

We had a quiet Christmas at home with our four kids. We have a tradition that all the kids open a present on Christmas Eve, and it's always a book. On Christmas Eve, we sit around the tree, and the kids take turns picking their favorite Christmas song. We sing the song, and then they get to open up their present to see what book they received. That gives them something to read when we send them to bed early that night. The past couple of years, we've also given the kids new pajamas. This year, Evan needed sweats more than pajamas, so he got those instead.

The kids were so excited to see what Santa brought them on Christmas morning. They negotiated for a 7:00 start time. They definitely would've picked a much earlier time if we would've let them.


After the kids saw what Santa had left for them and we opened the presents under the tree, Lauren made a display of all of her presents on the couch and then stood in front of them and asked us to take her picture. We were trying to figure out how she knew to do that, and we realized that she has spent a lot of time looking at the other kids' scrapbooks and has seen pictures of them on Christmas with all their presents displayed. I guess she wanted a picture like that in her scrapbook, too :)