Christmas 2014

Much like last year, I am ready to pack up all the tinsel and say goodbye to Christmas. I'm sure this attitude is a result of my over eagerness to plunge into the season just as soon as the turkey is carved. In fact, I rarely even wait that long. In typical fashion, much like in years past, we hadn't budgeted during the year for Christmas gifts, so when December rolled around it was a huge knot in my stomach trying to figure out how much we would have to spend and on whom. It is safe to say that we ended up spending approximately $600.00 on gift giving this year, and to be honest, that didn't feel like enough for me. I wasn't able to give gifts to my siblings, I wasn't able to send exactly what I wanted to Josh's Aunts/Uncle (in fact, I still haven't shipped off what I DID get for them!). We always do pretty well with the littles, and their cousins, but I want to do better. With that in mind, I'm determined to set aside $100.00 each month of 2015 for next Christmas.

So, anyway, even though we were ill prepared, Christmas was still pretty awesome. My brother, Jonathan, was able to sneak up when his sub "docked" (or whatever the term is for Nuclear Submarines coming back into the base to let all the passengers off) for a few days. I hadn't seen him since J was in the womb, M was 2, and E was a figment of my imagination. Josh's sister and her boyfriend, Bryan, were able to fly into town as well, so we had a pretty good crowd on Christmas morning. I think those will always be my favorite Christmases - so many butts there aren't enough seats, but plenty of food and good company.

As for the actual event, here are some pictures from the week of Christmas:

{Uncle Jonathan and the 3 Beasties}

 {After waiting for almost infinity, he finally got his DS}

{Aunt Sarah with the weeist Beastie}

{Our tree tried to quit on us, but I slapped some lipstick on that pig and she got back in the race}

{A new Christmas tradition with the Beasties - slightly inappropriate holiday movies and candy}

{A holiday care package from our pal Allen is Southern LA --- those are homemade cracklins and those Creole Onion chips are freakin' DELICIOUS}

{I waited for these dishes for longer than Mikey waited for his DS. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH}

{Eleanor turned 6 months old on Christmas... so there you go}

{The boys unwrapping their gifts from Santa before the rest of the crew arrived}

{A few shots of the boys enjoying their gifts}

Even though I want to box it all up yesterday, we're going to hold off until AFTER the New Year, and pack up Christmas this weekend. Feeling excited for all that 2015 will bring!