And it came to pass in those days:

I figure I had better blog about Christmas while we're still in the same decade.

We had Christmas at Blake's parents' house this year.  It was great fun with all 8 nieces and nephews there.  They all participated in the nativity at the house (which I thought was a miracle, seeing as my brothers and I never would have cooperated with that in a million years).

Ella and Coco were angles.

James was a wise man...bringing gifts of gold-wrapped chocolate to the newborn king (although most of it ended up melted on wise man's hands and then smeared onto the toilet later...--wait, I hope that was chocolate...)

Andrew was a shepherd.

Morgan was Mary and baby Harry (one week old) was baby Jesus.  Good job, Harry.  No crying he made.

Here come the wise men and shepherds to visit Mary and Jesus (no Joseph this year.  Jack was going to be Joseph but then decided at the last second he wanted to be part of the shepherd crowd, so Mary was a single mom this year.)

Mary did an excellent job holding Jesus...even when the angles got curious and tried to steal him away.

But all was well, and Jesus was safe, and the angles were still happy.

I'd call it a success.

Also a part of the evening was the fabulous salmon dinner and ice cream sundae dessert (yay, ice cream on Christmas!) that Blake's mom cooked.  Here she is in all her Christmas-tabled glory:

Here I am, looking a little stunned (I've been hard pressed to take a good picture lately...my new Maryland drivers license can second that statement), and wishing I could take credit for the decorations.

Here are the munchkins at the kitchen table, furiously coloring in the 12 days of Christmas so they could hold up their sign at the correct part of the song.  I was also surprised how well this went.  There was only minimal pinching and poking, and little to no crying.

Here is Sydney shooting at us with the air gun (my favorite present that we gave the kids...and judging from the use it got on Christmas Eve, it was their favorite too --well done me (pats self on back)).

And so it was a Merry Christmas for all, and for all a good night.