Christmas is always a process when it comes to all the family gatherings, but it has evolved quite a bit over the years and was quite the different experience this year.

In our early years of marriage, we awoke at the crack of dawn or before to open our gifts to each other before hitting the road to my parents’ to exchange gifts and scarf down a cinnamon roll.  We would be out of the door and headed to Chris’s parents usually by 10:30 that morning for more Christmasness. 

But wait, there’s more.

We had a few hours there before heading to one set of Chris’s grandparents by one o’clock and then to the other set around five o’clock that night.

This year was much different in that we began the fun the Saturday before Christmas with Chris’s parents since his sister and fam were headed out of town this year.

We ate like KINGS. Seriously.  Oh the food that was consumed that day.  We had brunch at 2 ish and dinner at 6 ish.  I think I still might be full.

I got a fabulous crockpot I’d been wishing for…

And hubby’s gift from his sister was a gift card to one of his favorite places…

A place his wife doesn’t EVER want to go.  :)

In between our Christmas adventures we had some fun of our own in the kitchen!

Haylee loved getting to try out her new apron while Wade snuck frosting off the knife and Davis glared at us all.  Maybe he wanted to help too?

Next up on the Christmas agenda was a two day event at my parents.  Thursday night would be Christmas Eve and Friday would be Christmas Day since Christmas on a Sunday made it harder to do our normal rendezvous.

Mom got a great idea to play Bingo to fill our own stockings for our Christmas Eve.  Every time you got ‘bingo’ you got to go to the prize table and pick something to go in your stocking.

Then it was back bright and early Friday for our ‘Christmas Day’ event…

I think it took us two hours to get everything opened. Poor Wade konked out later that afternoon in the recliner.  :)

Saturday {the real Christmas Eve} we celebrated at Chris’s grandparents, and I got the funniest pictures of Wade and Davis.

Our own little Where’s Waldo!  :)

Finally it was time for our very own little family’s Christmas Craziness!  Christmas morning we all got up together and decided to torture the kids by making them watch us open our gifts before they lost their minds opening theirs.

We finally finished with ours and mercifully it was their turn…

Davis loved his presents from Haylee… so much that he couldn’t decide which one to put down so he could pick up the next one.  :)  Wade was so excited to get a Tar Heel shirt just like Daddy… he even HUGGED it.  Haylee had been spying those cutie pie hats and was thrilled to get one!

Wade definitely kept up entertained this year.  He opened some kid sized boxing gloves with such a confused look.  He had no idea what they were. 

All it took was for me to tell him they were fighting gloves, and he was all smiles. You can see in the collage pic above that he loved them so much he didn’t want to take them off to open another present.  :)

Probably the funniest picture of the day, however, and one that you deserve an award for still reading was a gift Wade and Haylee had concocted. 

She asked him what he wanted to get Mommy for Christmas and his reply was, “I’ll do ballet for her.” 

Uh, yeah.  A bit too much Angelina Ballerina via Netflix, ya think?

I opened up this note written by Haylee…

…and Wade surprisingly remember his master plan and the show began.

Ah, I love this picture!

Just when the kiddos thought all the presents were done, we pulled the classic parent present trick.  We revealed their big gift still to open!  :)

A real karaoke machine for Haylee… {what was I thinking??!!}

A small four wheeler for Wade… {Have I lost my mind?}

And a little red wagon for Davis… {He loves it but still didn’t wanna let that phone out of his grasp!}

And another family Christmas comes to a close.

If you made it to the end of this post, Congratulations!  Hope your Christmas was full and fun!

Looking forward to a great new 2012!