"Is it Christmas Yet? How Many Days Until Christmas?"

Although we kicked off Christmas early in our house, I am outrageously late in posting the evidence.  We picked out our tree the day after we returned from our Thanksgiving weekend.  Don't the girls look excited to be...out of the car?  They had a lot of fun roaming the aisles upon aisles of trees.  We attempted a picture of all four.  They're all there.  That's about all I can ask for these days.  You'll see another example in our Christmas card ;)  

And, all of the tree-pickers got Starbursts.  Daddy hands out the treats to the masses.  I'm pretty sure this was the highlight of the day!

And, a few days later, we had the tree decorated and Christmas jammies on for the full effect.

Our next Christmas festivity?  Santa came to SI, just for faculty kids and grandkids, and we could hardly wait to meet him...

Some of us were thrilled when the big man walked in the room,

and others...not so much.  This is Annie losing it.

Tessa couldn't even bear to make eye contact with me, never mind Santa!  She had her face buried in Matt's chest for most of the visit.

Bridget and Megan were more than happy to pose with Santa,

while Tessa clung to Matt for dear life.

For our family shot with Santa, Tessa still hadn't recovered, and Annie was equally traumatized.  Maybe we'll have better luck next year!

I'm not sure where Megan had run off to for this shot, but at least I got a picture with most of my girls :)

Oh, and the night before the Santa visit, Matt had his faculty Christmas party, where they graciously had babysitters on hand.  We took advantage of this for the first time.  They might place a limit on the number of children per faculty member next year.  I don't think they were counting on any one person bringing four kids ;)

More Christmas festivities to come!