Our Christmas festivities started the Sunday before Christmas with the annual Hickey family reunion. We had the full family together with the usual craziness. On Monday, Lisa and Wayne and Peter, Kathleen, and Meghan drove up to our house for several days of fun.
The entire Hickey family...
The Van Citters' cousins: Max (4), Nicholas (7), Meghan (1), Nathan (9), Donovan (5), Benji (7), and Lily (3)
Back to our house...
This year a new element of Christmas fun came to our house. When the kids visited with Santa in early December, Nicholas requested an "elf on the shelf". Several days later an elf arrived at our house with a special message for the kids. In essence, the elf's job is to watch over the kids and report up to Santa after they go to sleep each night. The rules: the kids aren't allowed to touch him (it might hurt his ability to fly back to the North Pole), the elf can't talk to the kids but he can listen, and the elf must fly back to the North Pole with Santa on Christmas Eve - and stay there until the following year. Nicholas named him "Meep," which he told me is one of his favorite names. Meep had a knack for showing up in strange places every morning (such as using a toy crane to lift an ornament onto the tree, having a tea party with Lily, flying a rocket on the top of the Christmas tree, swinging from the bathroom mirror after writing a message in chapstick on the mirror, taking off on an airplane down a runway made of marshmallows and M&Ms, etc.).
On the morning of Christmas Eve, we found Meep going for a sleigh ride in the sleigh that Doug designed and helped each of Nicholas K/1 class make for a holiday project. He's wearing a necklace that Nicholas made for him.
We're looking forward to Meep's return next year.
Christmas Eve - Doug, Lily, Donovan, Nicholas, Aricca
We opened a handful of special presents on Christmas Eve. Here Lily shows off her new stuffed kitten from Grandma and Grandpa.
The kids listening to Aunt Kathleen read a story from the book from Ray, Malu, Neel, and Hael.
Kathleen, Meghan, and Peter. Meghan celebrated her first birthday on December 27th.
Meghan loved holding onto Nicholas' ear (and Nicholas loved it too).
Nana and Bapa with the Van Citters' children.
Meghan hanging up her stocking.
A big hug from Lily.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with pride...
A lot of them!
Story time...
The kids explore their stockings on Christmas morning.
Santa brought whoopie cushions...
And special flashlights...
And a princess hat...
Very excited boys.
Lily reading with Bapa
Peter, Meghan, and Kathleen with new oven mitts.
All of the children enjoyed Meghan's counting book.
We got a new camera lens that we are very excited to play with... I love this picture of Nana.
Aricca
Meghan
Meghan and Peter
Donovan and Nana searching for hidden crystals.
Donovan and Nicholas experimenting with volcano explosions...
A few days after Christmas we visited Beth and Dave and their boys in Lexington.
Benji and Nathan teach Nicholas and Donovan how to play a race car game.
Nathan, Nicholas, and Donovan
And Lily gets to play dress-up with Max's costumes.
For more pictures from Christmas, click here or see the slideshow below.
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