Poytress Family Christmas

This was one of the whitest Christmas's we have seen in quite a few years. It seems that our snow has been falling later and later in the year which means less and less snow on Christmas day! I remeber playing catch in Grandma Nelsons yard on Christmas afternoon with out my coat on and Aaron says he is pretty sure his parents went for a christmas day cruise in the Vett' a few years back, but not this year!!!! This year was all about the snow, check out the Poytress Deck! We weren't going to let the snow get in the way of our faboulos BBQ chicken dinner, Al bundled up and took one for the team. Here he is grilling away in -30 degree weather and boy was it worth it!After dinner we started in on the Christmas eve traditions. First Grandpa read the chrsitmas story to the family. The kids just love to snuggle up and listen to Grandpa, AJ was actually quite for the whole thing!Then we each take our turn and hang the christmas stockings, starting from oldest to youngest. I can't belive that we had 13 stockings this year. The family is getting so big and in June it's going to get a little bigger!!!.
Aby & Syd got everything ready for Santa and set out his cookies, Milk,, Carrots for the reindeer, and a little note. It reminded me of when I was younger and in charge of getting the treats ready for santa. I am looking forward to future Christmas's with our Kids when they start to understand it a bit better and get so excitedThe girls sang us some of the songs from their Christmas concerts and then it was off to bed for the little ones!
They all wentto bed great and after a few rounds of president scum we all turned in for the night.....Well alomost all! Lorraine has yet to sleep on a christmas eve, no matter how hard we work the day befor to wrap, clean, and organise she some how finds a way to keep busy ALL NIGHT! I honnestly don't know how she manages to stay awake the next day but she dose. Not only dose she stay awake but she cleans up breakfast and all the christmas wrap, makes a big Turkey dinner, plays with the Grandkids, and appears to enjoy every minute of it. As I get older I find it harder and harder to stay up late, but she's a night owl and I am sure she wouldn't have it any other way.
Since we decided to celebrate Christmas a day early this year Al had to be into Work but 8:30 for a half day meaning in order for him to not miss anything our Christmas Mornign needed to start at 5:30AM. It was early but waking up to the smell of Pancakes, eggs, and Bacon always makes it a little easier. Most of you know that I LOVE pancakes and so I was put in charge of making them while Al worked on the Bacon and Chelsie cooked up the eggs. It was a little hard for the girls to wait until after breakfast to open presents but they did a million times better than I would have done at their age. The were so excited to see that not only has Santa enjoyed his treat but he had taken the time to leave them a letter.Finally the time came to open presents. I always love the way the tree looks on Chrstmas morning fully lite, decorated, and surrounded with presents. It was Abys turn to be the Christmas elf and hand out all the gifts to each person which she did great at. In no time at all the beautiful gifts had been unwrapped and enjoyed and all that lovely paper was a pile in the middle of the room

It was 2 hours earlier than AJ usually gets up but he was in great spirits at 6:00AM, I just love this picture f him even though it came out a little fuzzy. He was being so cute I just had to snuggs him up!
Soon Grandpa was off to work and the rest of the house was fast asleep for another few hours, even AJ crawled back in bed with us until 10:00 which was a nice little treat. We spent the day watching new movies, playing games, and hanging out. As promised Grandma made a Turky dinner with all the fixin's and we ate until we could barely move. All in all it was a pretty fantastic Christmas!