Christmas Celebration

We had a great Christmas. Mom and my sister, Mandy, flew in from Indiana a few days before Christmas (and are in the process of flying home as I am typing). We actually celebrated Christmas (meaning we had the big meal and opened presents) on Christmas Eve. On that day Mom, Paige, Clay and I helped bag cookies for a local jail ministry. Our rule is to be 6 years old before you can help with this, so it was Clay's first year. One of the chaplains attends our church. On Christmas day they will hand out the cookies along with other items and scripture to inmates. It is a great personal contact that helps develop relationships that can be used throughout the year in ministry. After the cookie bagging we headed home, worked on the meal and started our family celebrations.

First, we had a very nice meal (if I do say so myself).



Then we took pictures by the tree.



Then we spent some time in the Bible talking about Christ, the reason for this wonderful holiday.

Then we opened presents.

The big gift for the boys this year were Bionicles. Clay was pretty sure that one of his packages had one inside and was pretty excited to open it.



And Drew was pretty excited himself to open his own Bionicle.



Paige is the one who cracks me up. She can be so girly and yet love, and I mean really love football. She got some Polly Pocket doll accessories, which she asked for and a Pittsburgh Steelers 2010 calendar, her favorite team, (we are a bit disappointed that the Colts aren't her favorite but they are in 2nd place) and football cards. She was so excited. Here is a picture of Paige organizing her football cards in the neat little binder that she also got for Christmas.



On Christmas Day we relaxed, played with our new toys and Jathan helped distribute the cookies to the inmates in one of the jails. We had a great time.