Christmas Eve at The White House

At 2:00pm we got Emily and met Dad at The Santa Claus House. We had to catch Santa before he headed out in the sleigh. Who knew the rest of Fairbanks was doing the same thing (don’t these people plan ahead?). We were there far to long standing in line and I was stressed we weren’t going to make it back to the store (in all my gift shopping I forgot food!).

For Erin.

Emily (and Homer) were convinced Santa had too much egg nog on his break. Emily thought he was a little too jolly and had a omg-don’t-pull-me-close-to-you look on her face. Lucas thought he was awesome and Olivia wasn’t going within 15 feet of him!

One of the three round-a-bouts in North Pole. One had a bunch a pretty ice sculptures, but photographing while driving while it is snowing and busy wasn’t working out so good for me.

We got our groceries and then on the way home pulled over to photograph the temperature. Seems we just can’t escape cold on Christmas.

We had a kicked back evening at home with the kids. Played some board games and I gave the boys a new game for the Xbox.

Nick wanted a ham so we threw together a Christmas Eve dinner. (Elijah is mocking me…”cheese” because I take so many photos it’s “annoying”).

The kids insisted on opening one present on Christmas Eve. I did not want to, but Homer said  that he had things in the truck that were going to freeze so I might as well just open it.

Lucas started and got a dancing game for the Wii.

Elijah got a shirt from the band he wanted.

Olivia opened dominoes.

Dad has a puzzled look on his face because he only wears the blue shirt he has on. Emily, Olivia and I decided it was time for a change. In the last eight years he has only wore two styles of shirt! This Christmas he got a variety.

Emily opened a pretty necklace from Granma and Grandpa.

And Nick opened his “surprise” shirt from eBay.

Then Dad brought in a big yellow bag from the Prospector (a winter clothing store). I looked in and saw something alive…. it didn’t register what it was – only that it was moving (and shouldn’t be). I screamed and thought I was going to have heart failure. Then my mind registered what I saw and I looked back in at this cute little face (that I about scared to death by screaming in her face!). My Christmas Puppy. He sure surprised me with that one! She is an 8-week old Shih Tzu and I’m still working on a name.

Of course we had to do some dancing and let me tell you, this version is far more difficult than the other one we have.

Emily insisted on moving all the presents out from under the tree so she could count them as she put them back. I was more than happy to have her do it. Pretty soon she’ll lose the wonder and anticipation Christmas brings to little kids and join the ranks of adults who find it to be another stress-filled holiday. Just kidding. Kind of.

Dad and I stayed up until two in the morning hanging out with Nick and Elijah. As tired as we were that time with them was worth it.

Santa was here and all was ready for Christmas morning.