Merry Christmas!

Christmas seemed to jump out of nowhere this year.  I'm sure it's a combination of having school/finals eat up the first 10 days of December and then taking off for a week's vacation in Southern California (I will post about our trip later this weekend when I get our pictures organized).  We got home late Saturday night, did church and had dinner at a friend's on Sunday, got caught up on laundry and some housework on Monday, did some *very* last minute Christmas shopping on Tuesday, and had 2 Christmas parties/dinners on Christmas Eve.  

This year we had the opportunity to participate in two "Sub-for-Santa's." One of them was done with Aaron's family for the Homeless Youth Resource Center.  Instead of doing a gift exchange, we took the money we would have spent and purchased items to donate for backpacks that they put together for the youth that they provide services for.  I thought it was a great idea.  We bought things like socks, handwarmers, and cup-of-soups.  

We also got together with our friends to help a family in need.  I enjoyed this one especially because it was fun to get the kids involved in picking out what to buy and wrapping the presents.  We went to our friends' house for dinner and a gift-wrapping party.  When we were done the guys took the older kids to drop the gifts off and "doorbell ditch" the house.  It was a great opportunity to teach Maddie about service and it really helped me put things into perspective.  

The girls have been a lot of fun this Christmas season.  Maddie wrote and revised her wish-list for Santa several times.  The final draft was mailed off on Monday.  The twins were enchanted with the lights and decorations and even got into the idea of Santa a bit.  This morning when we were going downstairs I asked Cami if she thought Santa had come.  She said "yes!" and then noticed the living room where presents were laid out and the stockings were overflowing (none of it had been out the night before - too risky!).  Her eyes were huge!  I'm glad we didn't go overboard this year, the twins lost interest in opening presents after two gifts (I think they each had 4 to open).  Maddie's favorite gift is the Barbie laptop that Santa brought and the twins love their baby dolls from Santa.  A close second was the Sleeping Beauty castle with several Disney characters that we bought at Disneyland last week (for 40% off!).  

Aaron was scheduled from noon-midnight today but was called off for the first 4 hours, it was nice to have him home longer than we had expected.  I took the girls up to my parents this afternoon for dinner and a gift exchange.  It's nice to spend some time with everyone.  I left around 6 so I could get home before the roads got icy and the expected storm hit.  The kids all went to bed fairly easily so it's been a quiet night here.