Christmas and then some!

Well, Christmas is finally over for this house. I love Christmas time. I have said that in so many posts lately. I love the reason for Christmas and being with family so much, but boy oh boy, we have such big families that Christmas can be never ending sometimes. This year was LJ's 3rd Christmas. It all started on Thursday night when we saw a friend to exchange presents (our usual Chinese night crew). John got a coloring book and crayons and Baby C even got some really cute outfits.
Then came Friday. We had to leave our house around 2 in the afternoon so that we could head out to East Brunswick NJ to see my dad's side of the family for our Traditional Christmas Eve gathering. We were there until after 830 (got there around 4), so we didn't get home until after 1030 at night. LJ had a blast at my Uncle's house and got a whole bunch of trains. I can't believe how many train sets (Thomas of course) he has now. We set them all up yesterday evening and he was in heaven. :)
Of course after getting LJ in to bed we had a bit of work to do in order to get things ready for the next morning. Santa had a fish tank all set up in our room that we moved in to LJ's room and put the wrapped box over so he had a present from Santa in his room when he woke up. He was totally amazed by that. We were sort of lucky that we did not have to hook it up as it did not have fish in it yet. That would have been interesting to say the least.
We don't do too much Christmas morning as we don't want to teach John that Christmas is all about presents. Plus, he gets plenty of gifts from the rest of the family. We are planning on having it that each child gets a present from Santa, a stocking, and then one present from mommy and daddy. Then we just have a nice morning as a family and enjoying each other and the reason why we have Christmas. Mid morning we headed over to Hubby's parent's house (the whole minute drive) to celebrate Christmas with Mommom, Pop, Uncle J and Uncle B and the newest member of the family, Aunt S. LJ made out like a bandit, again. This time luckily it was more construction equipment type toys instead of more trains. Around 1 we had Christmas dinner when Grammy and Pop M came over.
After Mommom and Pop's house, we went over to my parent's house (Mommer and Pop-pop). Of course LJ had more than enough presents again to open. It was this day that LJ actually was getting in to present overload at each house. It was nice being at my parent's house later in the afternoon because we were then able to be there when my granma was there. Our Christmas day adventures didnt' end until after 6 that night.
So, that brings us then to Sunday, the day after Christmas, and day 4 of "Christmas" for our family. Since we both have such big families we have to split the family in to groups and meet with grandparents and their sides of the family separately. After church on Sunday we went over to Grammy and Pop M's house to have Christmas dinner with them and the Aunts and Uncles on that side of the family.
Oh what a few days we have been having! And we knew we still had Mommom's mom to see and have Christmas with. That was Monday night! That means Christmas was then 5 days long, in a way, for LJ! I couldn't believe it. It was nice that Monday night at Nanny's house was pretty subdued, but it was still quite the ending to a week of Christmas.
Now we are just trying to recover from such a busy few days. I have so many new toys in this house that I had to pack up everything from before Christmas (well, almost). I love Christmas, but Christmas Eve and Christmas day are good enough for me. This whole, 5 days of Christmas, can be a bit much. I am just happy that Hubby only has to work today (Wednesday) and tomorrow. He has off every other day this week. It is great because then i have so much help getting things back to normal around the house. And I just love when he can be home with us! :)

How was your Christmas? Did your kids get spoiled by the family?

Until next time... Happy New Year!