Merry Christmas!

And what a wonderful (and busy) Christmas it was! It was a 3-day Christmas extravaganza, but it was a lot of fun, and really great to be able to spend it with so much family. More than anything else, being able to spend this time of year with the people you love, and who love you unconditionally, is pretty amazing. This year we had no shortage of that.

It started on Friday night when we headed out to Western Mass for the annual Haiko family Christmas party. On our way out to Southwick, we stopped in Springfield to see "Bright Nights," a giant display of Christmas lights in Forest Park. I thought Mudgie was going to love it, and while he thought it was cool for a while, he was more excited about getting to the Christmas party. At the party, Mudgie quickly made friends with his cousins Brandon (6) and Lindsey (his age), and also wrapped the older cousins around his finger, getting them to entertain him and build him a fort. Aaron, as always, was happy as long as Mudgie allowed him to play along, and/or as long as he had a cookie. The boys played all evening long, staying up until 10pm, at which point Aaron was SO overtired he fell asleep almost as soon as we got in the car to go home!

Saturday evening brought more family time, but this time it was down the road to my Dad's house in Chelmsford. Both Mudgie and Aaron were thrilled with the playroom Grandma Mary made for them, and they both made themselves at home playing with the toys, watching the movies, and making forts. Mudgie found a new best friend in Auntie Elizabeth, as they really hit it off, and he wanted to play with her all night! They opened lots of great presents, and were generally very well behaved for Christmas Eve, with all the excitement and anticipation that comes with it. We came home to give the kids a bath and put them to bed. Before bed, Mudgie helped me pick out cookies for Santa, and then I read him "The Night Before Christmas" and told him to listen close for the bells on Santa's sleigh.

I was expecting him to up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning, but he surprised me with sleeping in until 6:45! In fact, Aaron was up at 6am, and by 6:20 we were playing downstairs. Unfortunately, this meant Aaron found Mudgie's big Christmas present before Mudgie did, and was happily playing in it all morning. I was so worried that Mudgie was going to wake up and come downstairs only to find Aaron in his new fire truck (with a bell and a light). Luckily, I was able to extract Aaron without much of a scene before Mudgie came downstairs, and Mudgie was so happy with his present I thought he was going to explode. The rest of the day was kind of present overload. Mudgie just wanted to open more and more gifts (typical 3-year-old behavior), and Aaron wasn't really into opening things, but just wanted to play with whatever Mudgie opened (typical little brother behavior).

The whole Ingalls gang came over for Christmas dinner, bringing even more presents, but I think by that point the kids were so overwhelmed that they almost didn't notice them. Mudgie had lots of fun playing with his aunts and uncles, and Aaron did really well playing with Grammy and Grampy and letting Mommy make dinner. It was so nice to spend the day with our wonderful family, but it will also be nice for some of the holiday craziness to wane, and for life to get back to its normal level of insanity!