Wonderful Christmastime!

Christmas week is coming to a close and the thought of taking down the tree and lights makes me sad!  I'm glad to keep it up for one more week!  We started off the weekend before Christmas with a trip to Santa's Village with our friends!  I have never been in the winter and even though it was raining, it was still magical and seeing the entire park in Christmas lights was spectacular!

Visiting with Santa to give him their last minute requests!

That brings us to Christmas Eve and the new traditions we have started with our family!  The first one is watching the video email from Santa to find out if they made it to the nice list!  They did!

Portable North Pole Video Email!

And we figured that Santa gets LOADS of cookies so we made Cookie Dough truffles!  The boys each decorated one special for Santa!

The next Christmas Eve tradition is putting out the luminaries!

The boys were a big help this year getting them all ready!

The Christmas glow!

And of course no Christmas Eve is complete without opening up new Christmas jammies!

And the annual reading of Twas the Night Before Christmas!

Santa has come and gone!

The boys all stay in Shaun's room on Christmas Eve so that GG and Auntie Kristin can use the other two bedrooms.  That means that they are up early, this year they were up at 6am and our rule is no downstairs until 7am!  Thankfully we were able to distract them with some Netflix on the Kindle.

Daddy checked to make sure it was safe to come downstairs, but not before a picture!

And now it was time to open up their gifts from Santa and check out their stalkings!

Evan is VERY excited about his Monsters University toothbrush!

David has figured out that this must be the magic kit to go with the hat he opened earlier!

The Skylander sticker book that he wanted at the book store last week....How did Santa know!?!

The treasure hunt to find the big family gift that Santa left us....A new computer!

After the hustle and bustle of Christmas part 1!

The boys with their GG!!

After Christmas part 1, we cleaned up and started prepping for Christmas part 2 with my family.  We started out with munchies and then the kids opened their gifts from the family!

Skylander legos!  Awww...yeah!

Time for another Christmas tradition, the eating of the Prime Rib!  It's my third year making this and this year was exceptional!  Dare I say, I have really outdone myself!

So pumped, he saved himself the piece that was mooing from the middle!

The cool kids table!

Taking advantage of the little snow we had left, the kids headed outside for some sledding.  Guess we didn't take into account the layer of ice as Shaun went flying into our neighbors fence.  The black eye he is sporting since is quite impressive!

Before the incident!

Checking out Cohen's new sled!

Evan stuck with the saucer!

And we finished off the night, after exchanging Secret Santa gifts, with some Karaoke on the new machine that Santa brought for the boys!

David and Cohen's rendition of "What does the Fox Say"

Lastly, to complete our Wonderful Christmastime, we headed to the Cape to celebrate with the rest of the family.  It was nice and laid back with munchie food and loads of desserts.  The boys got some more cool gifts from his great Aunts and had fun playing some of their new games!

Evan shows Aunt Vicki how to play Minion Rush!

Evan and Aunt Karen play Monsters University, while the other two play a Skylanders game with Omi and Auntie Kristin!

It's hard to believe that another Christmas has come and gone.  I cherish these memories every year and I love the new and old traditions we are sharing with our boys.  I am already looking forward to next year!  Now bring on 2014!