It's all over.

Well, all the presents have been unwrapped, all the calories have been consumed, all the miles have been driven. Christmas is officially over.

We had a wonderful time! Mom really knocked herself out and we had a fabulous meal 4 nights in a row. We also enjoyed having Jilinda join our Christmas festivities for the first time.

The only downer of the whole holiday occurred on the 23rd. We had workmen over repairing drywall and our tree had to be moved. It wasn't anchored down very well and when Matthew went to show Thomas an ornament, the tree came crashing down shattering several of my favorite sentimental ornaments. Yes, I cried but quickly stopped when Matthew looked at me with huge tears dangling in his eyes and said, "I am so sorry! Now Santa won't come."

I spent Christmas Eve morning cleaning up broken ornaments, putting the tree back, and retrimming the tree. What a pain. Matthew and Thomas got right to work making new ornaments including one Matthew colored that said "1999" since one of the broken ornaments was a "Baby's first Christmas 1999". When the tree was finally up again, Matthew began dancing around saying, "Yeah! Mommy saved Christmas!" It was the least I could do.

Now back to the good stuff. As per tradition, we ate Mexican food on Christmas Eve and watched "A Christmas Carol". Then we went back to the house and arranged the things for Christmas morning. When the morning came, Lauren, Josh, Mom, and Dad came over at 7:30 to watch the kids discover the Santa gifts. The highlight of the morning was watching Mary Beth with her toys. I bought her a few things so that Matthew wouldn't think Santa had slighted her, but had no idea that she would squeal with delight and dance her heart out to all the music!

After the Santa gifts were sufficiently played with, we headed over to Mom and Dad's to eat breakfast, open gifts, and eat turkey and dressing. We all had a great time and enjoyed being together. I am always so sad once all the gifts have been unwrapped and the tree looks so bare!

After an incredible dinner prepared by Mom, we headed down to Conroe to open presents with Bryon's parents. We were all pretty tired at that point! Matthew did manage to lose a tooth while we were down there. Of the 7 teeth he has lost, 3 of them have been during visits to Conroe!

We got back home a few hours ago and are starting to sort through toys and take down a few decorations. I know most people keep their things up through New Years, but it makes me sad looking at the tree and garland knowing that the fun is over.

I hope everyone's Christmas was merry. I added pictures to the album to the right of the screen.