christmas day

Christmas Day is our day to celebrate with Mike's side of the family. Here is our Grandma D, the matriarch.
Our family does not really worry about the dividing lines of "in-laws." Thus my parents and Mike's mom love and enjoy one another. And Denise has adopted my sisters and their kids as part of her family too. So for a couple hours at the first part of the day we were all together.
At one point Aunt Helen began reading a book to Ava. Before Helen had read very far, her audience grew.

And grew.
Helen is a pretty great reader.
After my parents left, we had a little present exchange with Denise, Helen, my sisters, and their kids. It was nice and my sisters were blessed by Grandma D's knack for finding, buying, and making great clothes for everyone.
We had let the boys pick out some things for Alix and Keegan to open on this day too. Here is a lovely pair of footwear for Alix.
Cherie mentioned that her downstairs neighbors will especially appreciate this gift. And speaking of noisy gifts, the boys found this item for Keegan.
After the presents, we enjoyed a little lunch together and then Sarah and Keegan and Alix and Cherie took off to join my parents for a different celebration in Puyallup.
We were sad to see these sweeties go, but there was more party to be had.
Yep. It is a leotard. Grandma D got Ava her first leotard. Flash dance fans get ready.
We had a terrific rest of the day. We played games together while the kids napped and afterward video taped some memories.
Then we opened gifts and enjoyed hanging out.
The day wouldn't be complete without another big meal of course, so we partook of that as well. We ended the evening with our traditional game of Cribbage with the two most competitive cribbage players ever (Denise and Mike) and then everyone went to bed.
More happenings to come on the day after Christmas.