Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!  Here are a few photos from our Christmas celebrations.  The sister missionaries and our friend, Susanne, joined us for our Christmas Eve dinner and program.  Susanne was an innkeeper; Sister D. was a wise man; Brandan was an innkeeper, shepherd and wise man; Sister H. was a shepherd; Abe was Joseph; Helen was Mary and Sofi was a donkey.  Not in the photo are Gibson who was the angel and Becky who was the narrator and photographer.

Gibson took a few photos while we waited for our guests to arrive.

 Here is a tray of pot pies, our traditional Christmas Eve dinner.

 We slept in the family room on Christmas Eve night.  Gibson and Helen woke each other up early Christmas morning.  They wanted to surprise everyone else by dressing up like Santa and an elf and delivering the presents.  Gibson's Santa costume didn't last long, but Helen stayed dressed like an elf for most of the day.

Here's the lovely post unwrapping mess when everyone takes a second look at their presents.

 Each of our kids made gifts for their siblings this year.  Gib made everyone a stuffed animal: a donkey for Helen, a panda for Abe and a pig for Sofi.

 Helen is holding the ceramic snowman she made for Brandan at school.  Gib's koala is wearing the mini Santa hat she made for Gib.  She made a flannel pillowcase for Abe and a heatable rice bag for Sofi.

 Abe made 3-D origami figures: a flower cube for Sofi, a turtle for Gibson and a penguin for Helen.

Sofi personalized pillowcases for Helen and Abe and sewed a cover for Gibson's dragon training notebook.  She also made a little stuffed Gibson doll to give to Koala.

 All of the kids got multi tools in their stockings.  Helen spent a lot of time outside today sharpening sticks.  She whittled a 14 inch ash wand, a bow and a quiver full of arrows.  Most of the day was sunny and warm.

 We had the elders over for dinner this afternoon.  They skyped their families for a couple of hours and then we played games and ate dinner.  The elders have suffered from an abundance of sweets this Christmas and passed on dessert.  We ate our allergy friendly Buche de Noel after Brandan took them home.  Now we're off to bed with lots of happy memories of the day.