Christmas with the Brown Family

Tuesday evening we were able to get together with my dad's side of the family to celebrate Christmas. We drove out to Jodi and Michael's house (or "Mikey's house" as Mia kept calling it) which has a great setup for this big group. We started out by enjoying some appetizers (two types of cheese balls with crackers, chips with cheese dip and sausage with mustard) while everyone arrived and the food finished up. You know my family eats well, and this evening is no exception! Meme's fried chicken, Wayne's ham, sliced turkey, dressing, gravy, super salad, jello salad, green beans, sweet potato casserole, pineapple cheese casserole, corn souffle, mashed potatoes, broccoli casserole, rolls...oh my, talk about delicious! After dinner, we enjoyed a little bit of dessert (Jodi's teacakes, peanut butter balls, chocolate pie and a huge cake). It is not possible to leave a family gathering hungry!

Once everyone had eaten and cleaned up, we watched a short movie Lee had made of the family's last two Christmas celebrations. The Brown family (with a couple of exceptions) is not known for its singing abilities; this video highlighted that. It provided lots of laughs before we headed downstairs. Here's a picture of Mia snacking on some orange slices while we waited on the activities; the girl can always eat.
We always read the Christmas story from the book of Luke first. It reminds us that the whole purpose of this season is to celebrate the birth of Christ. Madi read the story this year, and the other kids put on a puppet show while she read; it was really cute. Here's a picture of all the kids at the end. Mia didn't actually participate (she is the youngest great-grandchild) but she jumped in at the end to take a picture.

After the Bible story, Meme said a few words about the importance of Christmas and said a prayer. After this, we sang The Twelve Days of Christmas. Ryan, Lily and I had "Seven Swans A-Swimming" as our part. Russ had us all cracking up as he performed "Five Golden Rings." This was fun too. That will definitely be added to Lee's video for future years! Next up was getting all the kids in front of the tree for a picture. Aren't they cute?

Mia knows it is time for presents now!

Slightly controlled chaos.

Mia trying to dig into the Fridge Phonics from Meme. It sings a cute little song to help Mia learn the ABC's; she seems to really like it. She is also enjoying the new puzzles from Randy and the Fisher Price Piggy Bank from Cooper. She sees it and says "My piggy! My piggy! Oink, oink!" It counts and sings as you deposit the big coins; she is having a lot of fun with it.

Lily is loving the Glow in the Dark Crayola set from Meme. It has a "crystal wand" that draws on the board to show up in the day or night. I have to admit, it's really pretty cool. She is also having fun with the craft sets from Randy (remember, she asked Santa for new arts and new crafts). One set is a little make your own mosaic set, and the other is a paper bag puppet making kit. She has already made several cute creations. Also, Bo gave Lily two Sing A Majigs dolls which are adorable. They sing, they harmonize and they are just too cute! Both girls have been having so much fun with these.

Once the kids finished opening their gifts, we let them start playing with them all. Lily and Mia alternated between playing with their toys and playing with a cool toy roller coaster that Jodi and Michael have in their basement; they rode that thing countless times and laughed every time. It was wonderful to hear!

While the kids had fun together, the adults had our Dirty Santa game which was lots of fun. There was lots of gift stealing this year which kept us laughing; put Wayne and Tiffany together, and you're guaranteed a good laugh. Ryan ended up with a great multi-picture frame which we're going to use in our office; it will look great. I opened a Chick-fil-a 2011 calendar which also had a Chick-fil-a gift card with it. I was so excited because I eat Chick-fil-a a lot! I kind of hid it behind me so others couldn't see it as well (sneaky, sneaky huh?), and I was thrilled to leave with it! I'll probably have the gift card gone in a week!

We finally wrapped everything up and headed out about 10:45...way past everyone's bed times. The girls did really well though, and this was a wonderful evening. We are blessed with a fantastic extended family!